


Drifting Sands

by mephestopheles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Bottom Tony Stark, Brain Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Fake Married AU, Head Injury, Howard Stark is worse, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Nightmares, Non linear elements, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Self-Sacrificing Tony Stark, Steve Rogers Has Issues, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers is scared of Doctors, Temporary Amnesia, Thaddeus Ross is a manipulative POS, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark is fatalistic, Tony is unstable in places, Vomiting, hand wavey science, mentions of marvel 3490, mentions of marvel 616, retrograde amnesia doesn't work that way, seizure mention, trump exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 09:22:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 46,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16829767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mephestopheles/pseuds/mephestopheles
Summary: Steve's hurt when he breaks everyone out of the RAFT and is found by Fury but Fury's running out of favours to cash in and Steve's not doing well. It's up to Tony to figure out what's happened and how to fix Steve's memory all the while keeping him off of Ross' radar.There's just one problem: Steve thinks they're married.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic in the MCU fandom and I am terrified. 
> 
> A few notes and thank yous to get out of the way and then you can enjoy the fic (I hope) This Fic is part of the Cap-Ironman Big Bang of 2018, and my artist, my wonderful, sweet, amazing Artist, is [Haylu Halo](https://hayluhalo.tumblr.com/) I will link her art [Here](https://hayluhalo.tumblr.com/post/180762754871/my-contribution-for-the-capiron-man-bigbang-event) in a jiffy. Thank you Thank you Thank you for being so awesome. I had so much fun. 
> 
> [Striving-Artist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist), my best friend and the only reason I had the courage to even try my hand at this fic. She is absolutely amazing you all know this, but it needs to be said more often. She's helped so much in the making of this fic and holding my hand and yelling at me about my commas. Also lists, and possibly pointing out caravans. 
> 
> [notjustamumj](https://notjustamumj.tumblr.com/) THANK YOU SO MUCH! You did me a good and helped so so much. Thank you for reading my 40 plus thousand words several times and helping beta this beast. You are awesome.
> 
> I've included as many of the tags and warnings as I can think of at this point. Please, if I have missed any or you need sone comment or dm me on Tumblr, and I will happily include more. A major note, Steve's injuries and retrograde amnesia is not actually how it works. Tony Stark is fatalistic and not doing well in places and it can be depending on your POV that he's exhibiting some self-harm behaviours in places. This fic started out as a dream where I heard some of the dialogue but it has become so much more than that. In this Universe Drumpf exists, I apologize, but it worked narratively. 
> 
> Howard is even more of a fucker than even I believed capable, and things hurt in places. This fic is complete. I will be posting all six chapters over the course of the next hour or so depending on how difficult formatting is going to be. 
> 
> I will be forever grateful to any and all comments and kudos. I'm absolutely petrified to join a new fandom but Steve wouldn't take no for an answer, and Tony wouldn't shut up. 
> 
> Okay onto the fic

T'Challa's stealth jet hovered just off the edge of the RAFT. Storm clouds gathered overhead, rain and ocean spray mixed and visibility was down to just a few steps ahead of him. In the pitch black it was impossible to see where -the RAFT ended and miles of ocean began.

Avoiding the cameras and sensors with the help of Shuri's vibranium tech, Steve and the others ran from the doorway into the battering wind and rain. They were free. Twenty feet and they would be on their way. He could get them set up safely away from all the mess he had created.

"I take it things in Siberia didn't go so well," Sam said as they ran toward the ship.

"It could have gone better," Steve said, sending the signal to open the doors and looking for signs of the jet. Able to only gleam a vague sense of the jet through the rain as water tossed against it, he ushered Wanda, Hawkeye and the others aboard.

"I'm sorry, I really thought he had your back."

"It's not his fault, Sam. Zemo had something planned we didn't account for. We'll talk later."

A shout carried from the door behind them as Steve jumped onto the open platform. "Take us out!" He yelled to the pilot.

Another scream behind him.

A hollow sound of gunfire lost in a storm.

Then agony against the back of his skull.

Steve’s legs crumbled. The jet shuddered. Then nothing but air and fire along the back of his head. He tried to shift, to roll, but nothing responded. He couldn't brace or shield himself when he crashed into the ocean twenty stories below. 

Waves rose and tossed him. A burning raged in his head and roared down his spine as the sea pounded him relentlessly. He couldn’t fight it, his strength meant nothing to the waves, to the numbing pain in his head. Somewhere above, he heard a cry, almost lost to the winds.

He didn’t know who they were.

He hoped they were safe.

***

Tony sat at his desk, staring at the package Steve sent him. He didn’t dare open it. There was no return address, there was no indication who sent it. But he knew, down in the pit of his stomach, it was from Steve. Tony didn’t want an apology, or an explanation, or whatever was in that cardboard box. He wanted to take it out in the middle of the ocean weight it down and let it sink to the depths of the ocean, forgotten.

Instead, he shoved it in his safe and paced the compound; a ghost wandering the halls of a place he barely lived in even when the Avengers were at their peak. The home in Malibu was too lonely and too far away to keep an eye on Rhodey. New York reminded him of Steve. And if he bugged Pepper while she and Happy had a private moment together she’d kill him.

Rhodey was asleep, which he definitely needed. He did not need Tony disturbing his sleep to have late night confabs about Steve, or Siberia, or Steve, or his parents.

Or Steve.

He kept coming back to that part. Bucky killed his mom, killed his dad. And Steve knew. Steve knew and he didn’t say anything. The worst part, the absolute worst part was that he understood why. He had read Bucky’s files. He read everything they had. He found the tech his father had been working on, he found the reason Hydra murdered his parents. He found the old video files they kept on how they created their Winter Soldier. Hydra was distressingly proud of the lengths they went to with their assassin.

Tony had no doubt that Steve had watched every single one of these and blamed himself for every bit of it. But he didn’t come to Tony, he didn’t trust Tony with the information. Too many emotions, too many fuzzy, incomprehensible and squishy feelings. He needed to build something.

He didn't run to his labs, he damn well didn’t run away from his feelings. Tony surrendered himself to science. Unthinking, he worked, and tinkered, and built, and rebuilt things in the lab until he was covered in grease and small scratches, until his stomach gnawed from hunger, until his eyes stung from sweat and lack of sleep. When he finished, he stepped back and looked at what he’d made.

"Son of a bitch, even here," he muttered as he looked at four prototypes for a new shield.

"Fuck this. I need coffee."

Tony hit the coffee maker for pot number four, and took himself to the shower. Throughout, he forced himself not to think of all the reasons his life was run by memories of someone who didn't have the decency to be honest about his true feelings. Tony would have understood if Steve was protecting an old flame. Hell, Tony could be remorseless when it came to protecting people he had more than a passing tryst with. But nothing in the records indicated anything between Steve and Bucky. They’d been some great secret of the war.

So what had Tony been to Steve? A passing friendship, a half decent second fiddle until something better came along?

Tony wanted to yell, he wanted Steve in front of him so he could scream until his voice was raw. He wanted to throw everything that was weighing on him back in Steve’s face. Instead he stood in his room, abandoned.

"Message coming through on a secure channel, Boss," Friday said in the silence. "Meta information looks clean."

"Play it, Friday," Tony said from his seat on the floor, back against the bed.

"Coordinates, 46.7420 ° N, 60.8810° W, ASAP."

Tony blinked twice. "Who the hell wants me to go to Canada?"

"Educated guess, Boss, but from the information you've given me over the years this type of message suggests Nicholas Fury."

Tony let out a groan, of course the paranoid ex-commander of the Avengers would do things the old spy way. What the hell did he want?

Dealing with what Fury wanted was better than focusing on that stupid package in his safe. He wanted nothing to do with Steve or his letters, or his apologies. Not now, not ever. Was that even rational?What would Graham, his therapist say about his current mental state? _Tony, you’re in a fucking crisis and need to get your ass in here and not work on another fucking project for people who can’t see you’re clinging by your fingernails_. Whatever, maybe Fury would have something interesting for him.

He set off in the dark and landed an hour later on top of a trail. It was on the side of a large hill, or small mountain, with hills and a roadway off in the dark behind him, and the ocean in front. A simple wooden platform had been set up for tourists and easy travel down to what he could only assume was a lovely view in sunlight. Now with a soft rain and no ambient light to speak of, it felt more wild than the platform and the surrounding signs of human interference suggested.

Not far away, sitting on one of the benches, Fury looked up at him.

"Any particular reason you chose the middle of nowhere in Canada of all places for a secret meeting?"

"Has to do with a mutual friend of ours.” Fury paused, dramatic as always, before he started the real reason he’d summoned Tony. “I know things didn't go so well between you the last time you saw each other, but. . . I've exhausted all my options Tony and you're the only one left."

A stone settled in Tony’s stomach, a gnawing, heavy sense of worry dug into his gut.

"It's Rogers, Tony. He's hurt."

"So, I'm sure his friends in Wakanda can take care of him quite well. If that's all."

"I can't reach them, Tony. The Captain infiltrated the RAFT, he freed his team before Ross and the guards opened fire. It was bad, Stark. Hawkeye was shot and recaptured . Sam Wilson got away to parts unknown, hoping Wanda is with him, but Rogers fell. He spent three days in the ocean before we found him."

Fury stood. "You’re the genius billionaire philanthropist. This is your chance to do something and prove an entire compound full of geniuses wrong. Steve doesn’t has much longer left. He's dying Tony."

"You forgot playboy. You want me to save him? Your precious fucking super soldier -- First Avenger my ass -- god forbid something happens to him. But I'm a liability until my money or my clout can get you something."

"Don't save him for me, or anyone else. If you're still mad at him for what he did, save him long enough so you can punch him. I don't care, we just need him back."

"Why?"

"Because like it or not, despite your conviction that the Sokovia Accords are good and what we need, you know deep down you're wrong, and that Ross is dirty. And if Steve dies, you'll blame yourself for it even if you had nothing to do with it. At least this way you gloat about saving him."

"Did you know?"

"Did I know what?"

Tony's throat tightened, hot tears and suppressed emotion formed sharp jagged pieces from his jaw down to his collarbone. "Don't fuck with me, Nick, did you know what happened to my parents? Did you know his precious _best friend_ assassinated my parents? Choked my mother with that fucking metal arm of his?"

"No, Tony," Nicholas Fury said softly. "When they died I was still working for the NSA, I didn't start with Shield until '95. Their deaths were suspicious given what your father was involved with, but your father had a lot of enemies. We all do."

"And after you found out you were working for Hydra, what happened then?"

"Tony, I can answer your questions but time isn't on Rogers’ side here."

"You wouldn't have dragged me out in the middle of fucking nowhere if you thought he didn't have more time than you're letting on. So out with it, Nick."

"Most of the files related to Hydra and Shield's backhand dealings were encrypted, firebombed when Zola was destroyed, or stuck in some warehouse behind three levels of governmental red tape and cold war espionage. We had enough to go on that Sergeant Barnes had been involved in several key assassinations, but that was second hand information. All evidence of him existing had been manually scrubbed save for a few eye witness accounts of a super strong dude with a metal arm. We had his torture files, we had the procedures he was put through to do what they wanted, but no, we didn't have a kill list."

"Did Steve know?"

"Steve and Natasha were the ones who unearthed all of this but they still couldn't find any tangible proof that he was directly tied to something. Nat suspected there might have been a facility, in case he went rogue and they needed to put him down. Can't kill him, but you can bury him with his own dead. Zemo knew where to look. We didn't. If Steve knew your parents were on that list, he didn't share it with anyone."

"Why the fuck not, he should have told me, keeping this from me wasn't his decision to make."

"I can’t answer that for him, Stark? And you won’t ever get the answers you want if he doesn’t survive this. Ross’s endgame was always to get rid of the Avengers. Not control them, get rid of them."

"You think Ross is behind Zemo? That doesn't track."

"No, I don't think Ross is behind Zemo but I think he's capitalizing on the fallout. He's been gunning for having supers under his thumb since he tried to bag and tag Banner eight years ago. He knows he can't use Rogers for his own gain so he's going to poison the well somehow. Meanwhile if Rogers ends up dead so much the better. Steve can answer your questions once he's out of the woods, but right now he's fighting for his life and I've got no idea how to save him. So if you want someone to be angry at in the morning, come with me."

***

"Boss, we have a problem." 

Alarms sounded further into the compound as Tony looked up from his work bench. "We don't have time for this Friday. What the fuck is going on?”

"Four unknown aircraft on headed this way and they're loaded down with weapons. They were using a new stealth tech it's why we didn't pick them up before now."

"How far out are they? Any idea their origins? Hydra coming at us?"

"We've got fifteen minutes to scramble. Signatures don't register as Hydra. Can't tell you much more than that, Boss."

Tony swore, shoving his equipment into the travel cases, attached them to Dum-e and ran deeper into the compound. The blare of alarms multiplied, Fury stood in the middle of the maelstrom, untouched, issuing orders as doctors and staff ran around packing up their equipment.

"Where is he?"

"Under sedation, they're getting him ready for transport. You don't need to know where he's going. In fact the less you know the better."

"Bullshit, I haven't fixed him yet."

"You've got him alive that's more important than his memories rights now."

"It's Ross. Isn't it? He's found this place?"

"That's my guess and I'm not leaving it to chance. You need to leave here now. Before he or his goons spot you and decide to use you as their scapegoat."

"Fury, what are you going to do?"

"Disappear. I'll get in touch with you once we know things are safe. You've done what you can, Tony. Now you need to run."

Tony hesitated. "Boss, he's right. We've got to go now. Ross is on one of those aircraft and they're minutes from landing."

"Fuck! Get in touch with me, Nick. Don't leave me out of the loop.."

"I promise, Tony. Now get going."

He ran, like the coward he was. He ran through the compound to one of escape tunnels. Why the fuck was he listening to Fury? He never listened to anyone. On the fly he switched direction. He ran into Dum-e on the way, snagged one of his equipment cases from him and grabbed the first tech he saw. "Dumm-e, this is your new friend--"

"Uuhhh-- Carl?"

"Dum-e, meet Carl, Carl, meet Dum-e. He's going to keep you safe, because he knows if he does, there's a cushy job with Stark R&D in it for him with a 401k that would make an investment firm weep."

"Y-yes sir, Mr. Stark."

Tony saluted and ran down the hall away from the escape hatch and to where they were loading Steve up for transport. "Taking over from here boys, Fury is going to ground and we have to assume all our locations are compromised." That sounded military enough, yes?

Who the fuck knew he was only tangentially military.

They hesitated, but relented when they heard weapons fire above. Seconds later they took off on the other side of a mountain range and flew into a massive fog bank as it rolled along the coast.

"What are Fury's orders, sir? If all our locations are compromised, where do we bring the asset?"

"We need to go somewhere dark, boys, I don't want to start playing International Running Man with Ross any time soon. How how long do we have before Spangles wakes up?"

"I've got him under with a steady cocktail, Mr Stark, but it's going through him fast, his stress levels are elevated so he's blowing through the sedatives. I'd give it two hours at most."

"Then we've got an hour people. Friday, you with me?"

"Always Boss."

"I need somewhere safe, away from a lot of people where they won't look twice at a helicopter landing."

"Mr. Stark, I do not have enough fuel to touch down outside of my flyzone," the pilot said over the radio. "I have a limited window on where we can set down. If our safehouse is scrubbed I need to know where we are going and fast. I'm burning time while I float in this soup."

Tony looked down at Steve's face. The doctor was hunched over him and the cabin was filled with the steady beeping of the monitors.

"How much fuel do you have?"

"I've got enough for my flight plan, you tell me where you want to set down and I'll tell you if it's doable."

Tony felt the edges of panic settle about him. He couldn’t risk Steve at the compound, nor in New York, that'd be courting trouble. Overseas was obviously too far, so his places there were out. Malibu was usually under the gimlet eye of Ross or one of his cronies. That left one place, one awful place.

"I know a place, and it's not that far. Can you make it to Long Island?"

***

He didn't recognize the bedroom.

He didn't recognize the feel of the bed beneath him. Nothing felt familiar. Panic gnawed at his insides and he stayed stock-still in the bed waiting for the sounds around him to coalesce into something he knew.

Nothing.

No radio to orient him. The sound of the room settling around him was unfamiliar. The breeze coming through the window carried unfamiliar sounds. He didn't smell anything he recognized, but there was a musty, unused scent to the room. He didn't feel like he was under attack, and he wasn't tied to the bed.

The fact that he wasn't locked up didn't rule it out but he felt reasonably sure if he wasn't tied up or drugged out he could free himself. Probing why he knew that set off fireworks in the back of his head.

Even if he wanted to know why he was sure of his capabilities, the answers weren't forthcoming.

Finally, he opened his eyes and took in the room. The wallpaper was peeling, a muted shade somewhere between green and blue, dulled by age. It was clean. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the furnishings, and while the bedclothes on top of him were discoloured, that was from age not dirt. 

It was huge.

The bed sat on four large posters, with a canopy above his head, obscuring the ceiling beyond. The windows on either side of the bed were tall, covered in dark curtains that hung to the floor and let no light in save for the smallest sliver at the edge. There was a large dresser across from the bed and a panelled door leading God knew where. Another door to his right was open, the light was off but he could see the sheen of gleaming chrome and porcelain suggesting a bathroom.

This wasn’t a place he’d willingly bunker down in if he was fighting. But it wasn’t a place he’d expect kidnappers to bring him either. No, that would more likely be postmodern austere concrete stained with a disturbing array of bodily fluids.

He shuddered and ignored a nagging headache in the back of his brainpan.

He needed -- he needed -- he couldn’t -- he had to -- he needed --

***

The lights were too bright, too cold. Everything was too cold. Were they testing his stamina again? God, not again, they promised him no more tests. They promised after the blood draws and a few endurance runs they'd have what they were looking for. He couldn't stop shaking and the light hurt his eyes. He had to get out of here.

"Mr. Rogers, you can't get up."

"Please, sir, get back on the table you're not in any shape to be moving."

When he shook his head, the back of his skull caught fire and he went to his knees, screaming on the concrete floor.

"Steve, it's okay, you're safe. I'm here, I'm not going to let them hurt you."

Steve opened his eyes and saw Howard kneeling in front of him. "Howard? Get me out of here, please. I can't do this anymore. No more tests. No more, I thought I was doing the right thing, but this... I don't want this."

"Steve, you're not being tested," Howard said, and Steve felt his friend's too warm hands against his face and down to his shoulders. It didn't feel right, Howard never touched him, not before the testing started and especially not after he found out Steve was gay.

"Please, Howard, I won't tell anyone, I just want to fight, please don't let them test on me. Get me out of here, please? I'll go into hiding, you'll never have to see me again."

Howard and an orderly got him to his feet but he couldn't hold his own weight and the two men grunted as they held onto him. He felt the shock of the cold stretcher against his back and the clasp of the restraints on his wrists echoed around him. "You promised you wouldn't let them do this," he said softly. "You promised."

"Steve..."

Pain shot through the back of his head and he let out a scream. What new test had they rigged him to now? Were they testing his pain threshold, his ability to withstand torture if he was caught by the enemy? The pain crested and somewhere near his hand he felt a sting and warmth spread through his arm and up to meet the agony ripping through his neck and skull.

"You need to leave, Mr. Stark, now. We have to put him back under and you're in the way."

"Help me, Howard--."

***

Standing proved easier said than done.

He didn't expect to be so dizzy or so tall. Everything hurt like the aftermath from a back alley fight.

The second time he stood proved better and he made use of the facilities, listening for anything that might mean trouble was close. He couldn’t hear a lot, the house felt empty, timeworn. The large bathroom had a small window which indicated he was in a secluded wooded area.

He was on the second floor of a large house. He’d only seen one room and a bathroom, but if they were anything to go by the place was massive. He left the bedroom, and took a right down the hallway toward the main stairway. The hall was old, dusty and had an air of abandonment to it, yet Steve couldn’t shake the vague sense of familiarity.

Steve, of course that was his name. He leant against the wall as a wave of dizziness crested. It passed and the buzzing agony in the back of his head vanished as his surroundings became more familiar.

It felt empty in the house and all around him. That didn’t feel right, for the place to be empty, they never left the place empty for long, between family and friends dropping in unannounced.

He needed to --

***

He had to run, he had to get out of this place. It wasn’t safe, there were dangers lurking behind every corner. Memories threatened to overwhelm him no matter where he went.

The ‘staff’ were lying. They were tricking him, trying to keep him away from the doors and any exits. He was trapped and if he didn’t find a way out soon he didn’t think he’d ever leave under his own power. Someone was playing for keeps.

He needed to get somewhere safe. Each turn down the corridor led to a different set of rooms, but no way out. There were no windows either. His chest hurt, every breath felt sharp and didn’t go deep enough.

They were following him he knew it. They were behind the doors he refused to open and they were closing in. He had --

***

Tony didn't want to leave Steve , he wanted to stay there and watch as they set everything up, but Ross had already left several messages on his voicemail, yelling loud enough each time he was amazed he hadn't heard it through the phone. He had the helicopter refuel and drop him off in Hawaii, a car picked him up from a small airstrip he'd purchased and he bummed around for several hours, spent enough in the right places that the local papers did a small story about him spending the weekend on the Big Island looking to make some kind of deal to fund HURL for three years.

By the time he got back to Malibu, Ross was standing in his driveway, surprisingly alone for once. Tony gave a casual wave as he paid his Uber driver and sauntered up to the house watching as Ross steamed in his three piece under the midday sun.

"Heya, Ross, how's it going."

"Where is he, Tony?"

"Now, that's a conversation starter," Tony quipped as he walked past him and opened the front door. Ross stormed in behind him, barely holding in his rage. "Care for a drink, Ross, you look a little stressed around the edges. Pepper swears by this Kale and beet juice smoothie. Friday probably has the recipe, might help with that complexion of yours, it's looking a little blotchy today."

"Answer my question, Tony. I know you know where he is, and you're going to tell me."

"Rhodey's in New York as far as I know. Vision is at the compound too. I haven't been there in a while I've been doing some humanitarian work you understand. All about giving back you know."

"That's not who I meant and you know it. I know you have him stashed somewhere and I'm going to find him."

"Careful there, Ross, that government issued paranoia is starting to become pathological. Might want to dial it back some."

"When I find out where you've got him hidden, Stark, so help me, I'll drag you to the same tribunal and they'll burn the lot of you."

"Could I suggest yoga? It really helped me after New York. No? Okay then, you can leave if you're done threatening me."

Ross stormed off, his complexion growing even blotchier if possible. Tony didn't let out his breath until after Friday let him know he’d returned to his car and had driven off.

***

The dark walls closed in around him as he ran and dodged from one corridor to the other. He couldn’t tell if he was getting anywhere or going in circles. There was no exterior light to show the way. He just knew that behind him lay danger.

Pain clawed along his the back of his skull, his neck felt stiff, aftereffects of their torture, he surmised. They had ripped his identity from him, he couldn’t find his name in the echoing silence of his thoughts.

He didn’t recognize his own hands, or the feel of his feet against the floor. Nothing was familiar except for the invasive understanding that he was in danger within these walls.

He turned down the wrong hallway. A door opened in front of him and the sound of pounding feet behind caught up. Pain lanced across the back of his head, his breathing came in short harsh gasps as he threw all of his might into a punch taking down the people in front of him.

Shock spread as he watched the man crumble to the floor, blood pouring from his nose and spreading down his face. His unfamiliar knuckles were smeared with the same brilliant red.

He stumbled forward, panic urging him on. Where had that strength come from? Did he hurt the man, did he kill him? He had never done that before. He’d never been the cause of someone’s death before. Or had he?

They were coming from everywhere now, from both ends of the hallway and from another door. He didn’t know how many were there, only that they grappled him to the floor as someone jabbed him with first one needle then a second.

They tied his wrists and ankles, bound him so he couldn’t move and dragged him back through the maze of corridors to the lab.

“What the hell? I said get him, not torture him!” Someone yelled as they laid him on the stretcher. His body felt taut, stretched too tight in his skin and the world was bleeding colour around the edges. He had no idea what they’d given him or even if it was working or the adrenaline and panic was doing the job for them.

“Steven, you’re safe, I know you don’t believe me but we’re here to help you.”

“His vitals are too high, we need to put him under again.”

“No, absolutely not, he’s had too many meds and I don’t care if he can toss them off like they’re nothing, it’s still affecting his liver and heart.”

“Then what the fuck do you suggest, Dana, he’s going to get out of those restraints and then we’re all fucked. No matter what you try and tell him. You should have seen Frank go down.”

“We’ll give him his memories back. Resting his brain isn’t working and we’re taxing him too much physically. Get BARF and set it up.”

He felt straps wrap around him and press him tightly to the stretcher as people scrambled around him. A device wrapped ---

***

The next few weeks were a cavalcade of orders coming from the council, small skirmishes that required Tony's personal touch in some way.

He never spent more than a few hours stateside. Long enough to switch his suit or drop something off at the compound. Most of it was public glad handing, no fights to break up, no hydra nests to get rid of, instead it was body guard duty for a public dignitary. It was ride along for a summit. Ross and the council dodged areas prone to conflict, refusing to send him near somewhere he'd potentially feel compelled to intervene.

That didn't stop him from seeing the news reports. Devastating weather trends, government upheaval in once stable countries. And there was a hostage taking in Latveria but Ross was keeping him as far from that border as he could. Friday and Rhodes were monitoring the situation for him while he was stuck in time out babysitting politicians while they wined and dined in some do in London.

Something interesting needed to happen fast. The world was opening up and swallowing the greedy rich bastards up while they planned to line their pockets with yet more money. How much money did one person need?

Weird sentiment coming from a billionaire he supposed, but even he knew that his money was ridiculous. Maybe he could find a way to take all the rich bastards into space and any of them who didn't have a sudden and profound change of heart he could just leave there. Starting with that orange menace running for president.

"Incoming phone call from Pepper, Tony. It's urgent, status one encrypted."

Tony stared around at the milling crowd and took off into the air above the colonnade.

"Patch her through, Friday," he said, once he was high enough.

"Tony, I wouldn't call you but you need to hear this. I tried to get ahold of Fury first but he's not responding and I don't know how much information I can give out around here without Ross or one of his crew listening in." She snorted. "Listen to me sounding like Happy."

"Well, that's what happens when you've been married for awhile," Tony said. "What is it you want me to hear?"

"I don't even know how to explain it, Tony. I don't know how he got my number. I thought you said he had amnesia."

"Retrograde, trauma induced - are you saying he called you? Did you speak with him?"

"No, he called my private cell while I was in a meeting, I've got the message here, I'm uploading it to Friday now. Tony, he... he sounds, Tony, what the hell happened to him?"

"Can't talk right now, too many people about, I'll listen to the message and get back to you. Give my love to Happy."

"You better get back to me. I don't like this,Tony." Pepper said and hung up.

"Do you want me to play the message?" Friday asked.

A crash sounded below and Tony watched as a car careened through a park heading straight for the delegation. "Later, Friday, first there's work to do." He said heading off toward the vehicle. Stopping one small car wasn't really much for his abilities or pushing the limits of the Ironman suit but it did give him something to focus on instead of the message he didn't want to listen to.

He settled in front of the car and locked his boots to the ground for stability. The car slammed into his legs and he pressed down on the hood to keep it from moving. He looked into the car to see if there was anyone hurt and shut off the engine. There was no one in the vehicle and the front driver’s door was wide open as someone ran from the scene.

The explosion hit him in the chest and he fell back as the car hood turned to shrapnel. Pieces of metal stuck in the chest piece of the suit and his cameras showed nothing but static as Friday tried to reset against the onslaught of debris.

Another bomb sounded behind him. Screams echoed throughout the park and near the hotel. He pushed away from the debris, his viewscreen back in working order.

“Friday, patch into local emergency and send crews here to help with the injured.” He took to the air looking for the location of the second explosion.

On the third floor of the hotel, smoke billowed from several broken windows and fire spewed from the west side.

“And send a message to Vision, I’m going to need back up here.”

“Should I get in touch with Ross as well, he’s going to want --”

“He sent me here to guard the hotel, I’m fucking guarding the hotel Friday. I don’t need a rubber stamp for this.”

He flew off to the building, barely a stone’s throw from the first bomb and entered the third floor. Smoke filled the large room he was in and he scanned for signs of survivors. The ballroom was destroyed with fire spreading along the west corridor and a gaping hole in the middle of the floor.

Tony could hear the screams of people from the next floor down, and further into the hallway. Several bodies were scattered about the room, those closest to where the buffet had been judging by the debris pattern.

His chest behind the wall of metal and his own genius tingled and twitched. Tony didn’t have many nightmares of his time in Afghanistan, those had been replaced by a decade worth of new and ever more awful nightmares of aliens someday descending upon his home and turning it into a wasteland.

He called up a map of the hotel, the blueprints, and overlaid with them with information he’d been given as to where the Summit was to take place. The ballroom on the third floor had nothing to do with the summit, according to the hotel itinerary a comic convention had booked the space. The summit was taking place four hotels away using the underground system connecting the sister hotels to get from one to other.

Tony tried to tap into the Fire suppression system to get rid of the spreading flames and found the hotel had been hacked. The system wasn’t reporting an issue. Aside from the screams and roar of the fire there wasn’t an alarm to be heard.

“Might as well do this the old fashioned way,” He said, unleashing the fire suppression gear. Ball bearings the size of golf balls popped from his shoulders and along his arms and spread around the room toward the places with the highest heat signatures.

Once nearby the canisters popped and unleashed a sticky foam that covered and smothered the flames. Once the fire was no longer burning and as the smoke cleared, the destruction became clear. He quickly checked for any signs of life in the room, ignored the twinge in his heart when the signs came up empty and shored up the middle of the floor where the bomb had ripped through making sure to maintain integrity until the authorities arrived and assessed the rest of the damage.

He flew out the window and surveyed the front of the hotel. Chaos and panic reigned supreme as people fled the building. The bodyguards were nowhere to be found and he couldn’t see a sign of emergency vehicles or Vision.

He scouted the perimeter of the hotel and tapped into the scanners. Emergency vehicles were being rerouted to the sister hotel to block traffic to ensure the diplomats were able to leave in safety. The bombs were being reported as hoaxes.

Tony’s guts twisted.

“Rhodey, are you seeing this shit, what the fuck is happening?”

“I’m watching it Tony, but I’m cut off, I can’t access any of the systems. The emergency response systems have been hacked. There aren’t enough first responders on the ground near you to get in touch with.”

“Rhodey, I need backup where the hell is Vision?”

“Ross has him overseeing a project in Canada. I can’t access his communications. I think Ross is interfering.” 

“I need backup Rhodey, something is happening here,” Tony growled. He flew off toward the other hotel in time to see several dark cars speeding away in carefully traffic free areas.

“Friday, are those cars heading to the designated safe houses? Can you tell?”

“Not from this distance Tony, we’re going to need to track them.”

Tony flew closer, he didn’t want to get too far from the bombings, worried he missed something in the debris and was leaving bystanders to fend for themselves. He picked up speed and flew to the front of the caravan?, and sent a burst of tiny GPS trackers along the line of identical cars. They were small enough to land on the cars and fall into the windows to be picked up on clothing or a shoe, with any luck he’d be able to not only track the cars but the diplomats as well.

Friday and James were still working to undo the mess of the hack that had been enacted on the emergency scanners and get the police and ambulances to respond to the bombings by the first hotel.

He backed off the cars, letting them get the lead as they sped away from the chaos downtown. In order to ensure the safety of all of the diplomats and not put them all in one place should an attack happen there were four safety areas set up in case of a catastrophe. At some point the caravan split and the cars stopped following one main line of traffic, some entering the regular flow and others leaving the city entirely.

“Ross is online and he sounds pissed, Tony.”

“Patch him through,” Tony said.

“Tony, what the hell are you doing? Where the hell are you?”

“Dealing with fallout Ross, where the hell is Vision? I need back up.”

“You don’t need anything, Vision is doing his job, why can’t you just follow your orders? You are not required to follow the diplomats, your presence is just calling attention to their exits.”

“What about the first responders, Ross?” Tony asked, watching the dots travel along the map in his GUI. It all appeared normal, the cars followed the correct routes and he cursed as he hovered above the city.

“What about them? They were dispatched appropriately.”

“Like fuck they were, Ross, there are people dead in the hotel and you’re saying all is fine?”

“You’re job was to cover the exits to make sure the diplomats had a safe exit. Instead you were too busy getting involved in something that didn’t concern you and put people in jeopardy. If any one of those diplomats goes missing it will be on your head, Tony.”

Another bomb exploded behind him sending a cascade of smoke and debris through the air. He swung around heading back, ignoring the diplomats.

“Tony, I don’t fucking care if the buildings are falling around your ears. Your job is to protect the diplomats! Do not engage in any other activity, that is an order.”

Rage rose in throat like hot, acidic bile hanging up, he screamed at his view screen. Goddamn Ross, fucking god damn all of them.

“HOW THE FUCK WAS ROGERS THIS RIGHT FRIDAY?”

“You got me, Boss, still can’t connect with the emergency services but the explosions are drawing attention.”

Tony reconnected with James. “Tell me you’ve got something.”

“I’m not some hacker, Tony. I can lead men into battle but fixing a city’s emergency response system is more of a Friday or Vision’s gig. Where the fuck do I start, Tony?”

“Can you get through to Vision?”

“Still nothing, I don’t know what the hell Ross is doing there but I can’t reach Vision at all.”

“I need to go back and deal with the fall out, Rhodey. I’m sending you the info on the trackers. Keep an eye on the diplomats, something is fishy but I can’t put my finger on what it is yet.”

He took off back toward the hotel as he had Friday try and scramble the first responders, there was so much chaos below as people ran scared from the hotel and the damage spread out. He’d stopped the fire but the structural damage would continue along with water damage. The third explosion carved a hole in a building two doors down.

Tony flew down through the smoke, Friday switched his screen to highlight survivors and shore up supports to keep debris from crushing anyone. Where he could he deployed his fire suppressants and pushed through the thickest of the carnage.

Minutes ticked by as he worked until he heard something behind him. He spun at the noise, raising his repulsors to see four smoke covered people coming behind him with hands raised.

“Whoa, Ironman, we’re here to help, dude,” a husky voice said behind the grime. Two others came behind them with a makeshift stretcher.

“There are three in that room over there, it should hold up but I can’t guarantee--”

“You go and fix the big shit, we’ve got the people, my buddy is on the corner on the phone, he’s got ambulances on their way but it’s going to take forever with the traffic. Mark where you find people you can’t move.”

“Thank fuck,” he whispered and turned off to finish his scout of the damage. Tony moved in and out of the building; an apartment complex judging by the people he came across and he moved everyone he could find to safer rooms or outside if he trusted he wouldn’t hurt them more in the transfer.

Volunteers outside were cordoning off locations and moving vehicles for responders to get through. The fourth time he came out of the building carrying survivors he heard the sirens and felt the air leave his lungs in relief.

Ross was still trying to get through on his phone he could see the messages piling up in the background and he swiped them away with the middle finger salute.

Once he was sure he was more of a liability than an aide to the arriving fire trucks and ambulances he flew up higher above to survey the damage and had Friday map the entire place while he let his heart settle from his throat.

“How’s it look, Friday?”

“Chaotic but under control, fire and EHS are handling the main sections and police have arrived to help control traffic. The diplomats got away safely.”

“Sure, yeah, that’s good,” Tony panted out. His heart continued to overclock and he could feel sweat bead along his skin.

“I have the message from Pepper’s phone, she’ll want to know you’re safe and what you think of the message,” Friday chimed in and he thanked his genius to program her to pick up on the rising panic attacks.

“Let’s hear it.”

“P-pepper?” Steve’s voice came through thick with something Tony had never heard before. Was Steve crying? “Pepper, did I fuck up? I think I fucked everything up. I’m sorry to call you, but my memory is messed up. I tried to call Tony but the number I had wasn’t in service. Did he change his numbers? Pepper, I need your help. I need to reach him.” He sniffled thickly. “Did Tony leave me? I know you’re his friend first and foremost, I don’t want to put you in the middle of our di-divorce but--”

The message cut off and before Tony could process anything, Friday had reconnected him with Pepper.

“Tony are you okay? News is just starting to filter in about an explosion? What’s going on?”

“HE THINKS WE’RE MARRIED?”


	2. Chapter 2

Tony turned the car onto the familiar driveway and tried to ignore the memories and panic that forced their way to the forefront of his attention. It had been nightfall when he'd given the pilot the directions to the house and they had landed in the backyard. The house had been covered in shadow so he didn't have to see the state of dilapidation that settled about his father's home. 

His home. 

It wasn't his home though, it hadn't been his home when he'd been technically living there. MIT had been more of a home than the echoing, empty hallways of Stark Manor. When his parents died -- viciously murdered -- he'd walked away from the place. Packed up his things, went back to MIT and finished his course work. He stopped sleeping, ate little and poured every ounce of suppressed grief and anger into finishing his degree, by the time the year was out the board of directors were expecting an answer, and he needed to fix his way to a solution. 

The large manor home dominated the grounds. The roof on the east wing was partially caved in, the shutters were hanging off or had fallen into the overgrown bushes below. Several windows on the ground floor were boarded up, The former pristine white of the siding was a dull neglected grey. The fountain in the centre of the lawn was dry with plant matter, ivy, weeds, flowers he didn't know the name of had overgrown and choked the stone figures. 

Tony's eyes finally settled on the figure standing in the shade of the stoop. Steve looked good. Too thin, too pale, but he was standing on his own and he wasn't clutching his head. He had his arms wrapped around his chest and his knee bounced as if he couldn't stop the urge to move, or to act. 

Tony shut off the car, took his shades off and replaced his glasses. He didn't want to be here. He could leave, he could start the car again and just run away, go to Malibu or hell buy an island somewhere and tell everyone to go fuck themselves. Maldives was nice this time of year. He had his hand on the ignition when he looked up at the stoop and a figure strode out of the doorway.

"Son of a bitch," Tony muttered and got out of the car. "Fury," he bit out.

"Stark." 

Tony came around the car and walked past Steve, not meeting the questions in his eyes as he went into the house. "A word, Nick?" 

Crossing the threshold of his father's house he felt spectres from the past brush against him, memories of things he never wanted to dredge up again, never wanted to come near. Yet here he was, caught in the whirlpool of his pained history and magnetic pull of Steve Rogers. He crossed the large foyer and took the first right down the hall that lead into the kitchen. Where the rest of the house was covered in a mourning shroud, the kitchen was scrubbed clean, the windows were open letting in the soft summer breeze and offered a cheerfulness Tony didn't remotely feel. 

Fury stepped into the room behind him, and Tony spun around. "What are you doing here?" 

"I have good people, Stark, when they couldn't get ahold of you they got ahold of me." 

"When did you get here?"

"Three days ago."

"Before or after Steve decided to leave that message on Pepper's phone? Jesus, Nick," Tony whispered. "She doesn't need this, she's finally out of this whole thing, she doesn't need. . . that." 

"After, he used a burner phone which we've since destroyed in case Ross has any ears nearby." 

"My father was amazingly paranoid about people listening in, mostly potential competition. This was the only place I could think of where he would be safe." Tony's smile was bitter and razor sharp. "Give me a little credit. Now, about what he said. What are your doctors doing to fix that?" 

"Right now? Not a thing." 

"Why the fuck not? He can't keep thinking we're married or, or, whatever he believes." 

"Look, Stark, a week ago, Rogers tried to leave. He took out three people, and it took a lot to bring him down and get him back to the lab. They tried BARF and something went. . . wrong. We're still not sure how it happened but there was a power surge between the equipment, BARF and the tracking bullet." Fury leaned against the counter and rubbed a hand over his head. "He woke up fine, the doctors have been testing him since then, but aside from the phone call he hasn't been acting all that strangely. His memories are still faulty half of them are missing or out of sorts but he seems to be stable." 

Tony groaned. Great, this was just fucking spectacular. "So they've somehow managed to fuck the whole thing up because they couldn't fucking plug in a surge protector? Jesus, Nick, I know this shit is advanced but we're not dealing with idiots. They could have left lasting damage. At the very least he somehow believes we're married, as if that doesn't complicate matters beyond what's already what's going on. I don't have enough equipment here and I don't know what equipment is available in dad's lab that isn't horribly out of date. Do you have a safe house we can send him to, one that might actually be able to fix whatever the fuck that bullet has done to him?" 

"There's a complication. He can't leave the property without the tracking software inside the bullet becoming active. Not only does he become a target for every government out there who want a piece of him at a tribunal but he starts seizing. We haven't figured out a way to combat it yet and until we do he needs to stay here." 

"That's just fucking great, Nick, what does that have to do with me? I've done what I can, I can't bring any heavy equipment here without alerting Ross, and we do not want that. But you wanted me here, so what's going to happen now?" 

"Technically, Steve is healthy and no longer requires the same level of care that he needed prior to the RAFT. The issue is that leaving him alone, especially with the memories he has access to and those have been partially created by BARF is irresponsible. But I can't keep my people here essentially babysitting a super soldier that by rights doesn't require it, or deserve to be treated with kid gloves. Just because he can't remember the specific events of what has happened doesn't mean he deserves to be watched. We both read your father's files on Steve, observation of that kind will just lead to paranoia and distrust. It's already led to violence and we don't need anymore. 

"Whether you like it or not, the one person here that Steve trusts above all else is you." 

"Yes, because he somehow has concocted this idea that we're married." 

"And you're going to go to along with it." 

"Fuck you." 

"Not joking, Tony. He needs to know that someone out there has his back and is looking out for a way to fix whatever is going on with him being stuck here. You are someone he trusts." Fury pushed off from the counter and walked over to Tony. "Tony, I mean it, he doesn't trust anyone, doesn't remember anyone else. Not me, not Romanov, not even Barnes. He remembers you, believes the two of you are married, and is looking to fix it." 

Tony felt as if his stomach had been punched and the world got a little blurry. "You fight fucking dirty, Nick." 

"Of course I do, but I know you two need to work some shit out. At the very least he knows the two of you are not the happy couple he wants you two to be. But that works in your favour as well." 

"Great, I can yell at him for picking his best friend over me, when he doesn't even remember who the fuck that is." 

"Or you can actually talk about the real reason the two of you have had a falling out, that he didn't come to you regarding your parents. Or you can just not deal with it and pretend it doesn't bother you and add it to the massive pile of things that don't get under Tony Stark's skin." Fury shrugged. "Either way, my guys are leaving today, Ross is scheduled to make a press briefing about the state of the Sokovia Accords and if I'm not mistaken he's putting you on the bench?" 

"Doesn't mean I can take the time off to just stick around here. In case you haven't figured it out, I don't exactly have the best memories of this place. And I'd like to to not add to them with whatever the hell is between Steve and me.”

“You don’t have a choice. He can’t be moved and he’s now reaching out to you because he doesn’t trust anyone here. So you’re it.” 

Tony leaned against the island and it leaned with him. Taking a quick step back before it toppled over, he brushed imaginary dust off his chest and glared at Fury. “What the fuck do you expect me to do while I’m here? Renovation as relationship therapy?” 

Someone cleared their throat behind him and Tony felt his shoulders bunch. 

“Tony I-” 

“I have to make a call.” Tony stormed out into the backyard.

An hour later, Tony's private helicopter landed in the field in front of the dilapidated guest house. Unloading the boxes of his security equipment, he had Friday adjust the necessary flight plans so that Ross wouldn't be aware of him suddenly being in Long Island for no reason. He didn't trust Ross not to have him surveilled. 

Not that Ross's equipment was up to par with Tony's. Likewise, he didn't trust off-grid living in the Long Island version of Grey Gardens to be the only thing between Steve and Hydra piggybacking Ross' tech to find a vulnerable Captain America. He waved off the helicopter and loaded the cases onto a dolly up to the house. 

A quick glance in the living room showed him it was empty. Good, at least he could get the security system set up and be on his way before Steve could ask him those questions. 

Fuck Fury, he wasn’t sticking around. He had a business to run and things to do that didn’t involve babysitting Steven Grant Rogers in the haunted castle hallways of his childhood nightmare. 

He unloaded the boxes and set about installing the cameras around the perimeter, covering all directions around the house and the guest suites. It was busy work that he could do it in his sleep, but it gave Tony something to do with his hands and made him feel like he was actually fucking doing something instead following Fury’s orders. 

Or punching Steve.

Or yelling at Steve. 

He wasn't sure what he wanted to do with Steve at this point. Tony felt twisted, his emotions so tangled he couldn’t pull out one from the other. It was great that Steve wasn’t lying in a hospital bed, or staring at Tony like he was Howard. 

That... that had been a fucking nightmare. Tony shuddered, cold in the shadow of the house. Apparently, Steve has nightmares about being kept as a science experiment. File that under shit you didn't want to know about your former best friend. Had that been one of the reasons he’d been so against the accords? 

Why couldn't he just have fucking told him that??? 

And why couldn't you just tell you no longer trust your instincts? Why couldn't you tell him that you wake up in cold sweats with the names of the victims of Sokovia lodged in your brain? That some oversight isn't a bad thing because it keeps you in check?

Tony had no more answers now than he did when they’d argued in Berlin. He couldn't think of Siberia, he couldn't remember those agonizing seconds -- hours now that he had a copy of the tape and was as much a masochist as he was a narcissist -- of watching his mother die beneath Bucky’s hand in that car. Choking and begging for mercy from someone incapable of offering any. Someone broken, pieced back together to fit Hydra's need for an assassin. 

And laced between all of that horror was Steve's voice, begging him not to fight, to wait. But Steve knew, he fucking knew what his friend had done. He hadn't bothered to tell Tony. Did he think Tony was too weak, too fragile to handle that information? 

His hand slipped and he broke one of the cameras, jabbing his now free hand with the screwdriver and drawing blood. So much for using mindless busy work to keep himself occupied. 

He set his tools aside and ducked back into the house and to the small powder room off the kitchen. When he spun the taps with his free hand, the plumbing groaned and shuddered behind the walls. Brown water sputtered from the taps, swirling down the drain. As it cleared, Tony shoved his hand under the water to clean the blood away fast. The cut wasn't deep, just jagged around the edging where the screwdriver bit into his flesh. He cleaned it up and slapped a bandage on it, Ironman themed of course. He was an adult, but maturity was boring. 

With the cameras installed, the next step was setting up the software. Which meant going into his father’s office. 

Jesus fuck. 

"There are four other files on this tablet, they have all of your information, background, everything. I am not keeping any of this from you, but every time we tried to show you all of this you would crash. Hard." A moment's pause, a hesitation that Tony remembered in a kind of haze. He hadn't slept for four or five days when he decided to make those vlogs for Steve. "There is a piece of tech lodged in the base of your head just behind your right ear. It's small and inert but the way it's wrapped itself around some nerves has doctors concerned. You try accessing those memories of yours, even by reading the files we have here and you're in for a world of pain. But if I didn't offer them I would be keeping shit from you and I refuse to do that." 

Tony couldn't listen to any more. Fourteen seconds after he sat at the computer he heard a yelp from the living room. 

"Are you okay in there, sweetums?" He yelled from the office. 

Steve let out a groan from the doorway. "You aren't fucking around are you?" 

"Not even a little, Steve. I meant what I said on those vlogs. Access the files and your brain short circuits. We're lucky right now that it's down to the effervescent jolt of a wall socket and not the fireworks that kept happening in the hospital." 

"Is there any way you can just give me the short version, no details but the a,b,c of how we got here?" 

"The short version, babycakes, is that you were out where you shouldn't have been, and you got hit. In the last eight weeks, we've tried everything. This is the longest you've been conscious and not in agony either emotionally or physically or both. Traumatic brain injuries are unfair but I'm hoping that some rest here away from possible triggers will help while I do research on how to remove that thing from your head." 

Steve sat down in the chair opposite from the desk, folding his tall but thin frame into the chair. "But you're not a neurosurgeon." 

"No, that I'm not or I'd have had you fixed weeks ago," Tony mumbled as he set up the security system. As a failsafe, he installed a piece of Friday on the main computer. She'd be in charge of the security now that she had eyes on the ground. Surveillance from his satellites was all well and good, but see above Re: Ross and his latest Tony obsession. 

"So, this is it," Steve said. "This is where we are. You keep me safe because of my own stupid ego, even after all I've done. And yet you still can't look me in the eye. I know I deserve it, but fucking hell I didn't think it would hurt this much."

Tony looked up from the computer and cursed every instinct and warning bell that went off at the sound of Steve's broken tone. "I don't think I understand." 

Steve let out a snort and leaned his head back, his eyes shining. No that was a trick of the light, Captain fucking America didn't cry. Or if he did it was over something ridiculous like puppies or Freedom. Steven Grant Rogers was not part of the self-pity brigade. 

"I didn't think I'd ever hear you say that, Tony. You not understanding something, I should take a picture if it wasn't so fucking painful. " 

"Steve, you've lost me, and I would love to be on the same page here," Tony said quietly. "Oh my god, are you crying?" Tony went around the desk and took Steve's face in his hands. "Do I need to call in the medical staff, I have them waiting on standby. Are the migraines back? We can handle those with the right cocktail. But you gotta tell me what's happening in that head of yours. Did I fuck up bringing you to Long Island, do you have some secret memories I'm not aware of?"

Steve leaned into his hands and Tony could feel a soft tremble coming from him. "My head is sore, but not a migraine, I remember those. Long Island is just as unfamiliar as it was three hours ago. No, you didn't fuck up," Steve said his voice thick. "But I did by trying to murder you."

Tony felt his own brain short for a second. "Murder me? What the everloving fuck are you talking about. You didn't try to murder me." 

"Seriously, Tony, there's a lot of god damn information in my head but the thing that feels the most real is that thing that terrifies me. I remember, Tony! I remember our fights. I remember the last one, last winter, out the middle of nowhere. I remember using all of my fucking strength to keep you from something and smashing your chest open." Steve's hold on his wrists tightened and he stared into Tony's eyes. "I remember leaving you there."

It was too close, too raw and Tony wanted to look anywhere else, but Steve was running the show. Those words, I remember, they were the best and worst things Tony had ever heard. "What do you mean, ‘you remember.’" 

Steve swallowed, Tony could feel it beneath his hands along Steve's jaw. It was an awkward position, but he dared not move and break the spell around the two of them. If Steve was getting his memories back this quickly, maybe he wouldn't have to track that asshole Strange down to wherever the fuck he had disappeared to.

"I remember a fight, I remember saying some awful things. I know it became physical. But I did something, something terrible." Steve pressed a hand over Tony's chest. "I tried to kill you. I remember slamming something into your chest, I remember the look on your f--face." 

Tony shook his head. "Hey, Steve, this is a good thing Steve, an organic memory without your brain frying," he said, latching onto something positive, even if it was vague, it was forming back into proper memories. Horrible memories he wished neither of them ever had, but apparently, Steve's Catholic guilt helped with memory formation.

Steve shook his head. "Oh, sure that's just fucking beautiful, Tony. The first memory I get is the one where I'm trying to murder my husband, but sure it's organic so that's cool.

Tony blinked.

"Wait, back it up, married what now?"

Steve waved the question off. "I get it, you didn't want to surprise me with that off the bat. No need to scare the soldier too much, especially when he has already tried to kill you once."

"Okay first off, you weren't trying to kill me. I was out of control. Extenuating circumstances, sure, one we will discuss when it doesn't fry your brain. But you are not the sole bearer of the guilt here. Things beyond our control were happening -- and sure when your memory comes back fully there are going to be a lot of things we need to discuss - but back to this husband thing...." He was rambling, he was a little off-kilter, you know, considering. What the hell, Rogers, Married?

Steve's grip tightened further, not painfully, as if anchoring him to Tony. "Just, tell me I didn't fuck this up to the point we can't put it back together, Tony? I've got very few ideas where I'm going with this and you are the only one that is familiar at all. If I did break what we have, tell me what I need to do to fix it. I can't do this without you."

Klaxons were ringing in his head, something was very fucking wrong with Steve's memory generation, but he kept rubbing his thumb against the back of Tony' s hand. It was distracting but in a very different way. Steve being -- what bi? There was Aunt Peggy to consider, and sure beards were a thing in the forties, so it was possible he guessed -- wasn't the issue. Steve having obvious feelings for Tony and those feelings somehow took a logical step of married. 

When Steve got his memories back, he was going to kill Tony. In the meantime he wasn't going to let the current Steve be left with the conviction he had fucked up that horribly. 

Tony processed all of it between one blink and the next. Old familiar paths stood before him. He let out a laugh, and let Steve go, removing himself from the all too distracting touch of Steve's hands against his skin. "As if you could get rid of me," he quipped. "I've set up your security system, everything is handled through here and I've got Friday handling all of it. Say hi to Steve, Friday."

"Hello there, Steve," she said on cue. "Sorry for startling you, I'll try not to do that too much in the future, I'm going to monitor your security and anything else you might need an AI for."

Steve was staring at him. That way too intense stare he had when he had pieced something together and he didn't like the outcome. "It's lovely to meet you Friday. Tony thinks he can distract me by introducing us. He thinks that I wouldn't wish to be rude and ignore you. Do you object, Friday, if we postpone our official introduction until after Tony gives me a straight answer?" 

"I haven't done a straight thing in my life, why would I start now?" Tony asked. 

"Sure thing, Steve. I'm just a query away."

Steve smiled thinly and leaned forward. There was a light in his eyes, not the same light he used to have, but an echo of it. Steve reached across the desk and stilled his hand just before he touched Tony's. 

"I wish I knew what I did to hurt you. Before you say it, I know remembering that stuff is impossible right now. But the information I do have is telling me we're married and I fucked it up. From the bottom of my heart, I am sorry I hurt you-"

"Don't.. don't apologize."

"I can't apologize for the specific instance that caused this between us, but I can apologize for it hurting you. My feelings for you are not new, I know my memory is full of holes and being held hostage by a piece of god only knows what lodged in my head, but I know  _ this _ . I know us. Whatever has happened, Tony, no matter how bad it was, how fucked up, I will do what I can to make it right."

Tony felt like he was shaking on the inside. Not the same panicked running he felt after the alien attack. Steve looked so earnest, and he had no reason to doubt Steve's sincerity. Every instinct, every passing glance, every second he spent denying the unspoken feelings he held for Steve came rushing back. He had no walls to protect himself, they'd been broken down by weeks of watching the man in front of him fight and tear himself apart from the inside. 

And each time they woke him how he'd react to Tony's presence. There were hours of footage. Trial and after trial. Steve only ever thought Tony was Howard the once. After that first time, Steve knew him. Even when he didn't know Tony's name he trusted him when he didn't trust anyone else. There was enough evidence that Steve had feelings for him, or enough evidence that Tony's wishful thinking was rationalizing itself into existence. But was this the key to burying the hatchet the between them? Was this all it was going to take to fix them? 

Tony couldn't deny that a small, vicious, abhorrently selfish part of him that knew that Steve didn't remember Barnes sent a jolt of joy through him. Rejoiced in that knowledge that Tony was who he remembered. Tony wasn't proud of that part of himself. But he couldn't deny it existed either. He could be selfish in this one thing, yes? He wasn't going to keep Steve locked in a tower away from everyone forever. Eventually, he would figure out how to remove the bullet, and they would work on getting Steve's memories back. Even if that meant reintroducing him to Barnes and losing him all over again. 

Tony felt his heart twist at the thought and finally put a name to what he'd been denying since Siberia. Tony reached out and grabbed Steve's hand and squeezed it. "I -- need you to stop apologizing, Steve." Tony's voice shook and Steve, still the super soldier with all his strength and speed was around the desk with his arms around Tony and his head against Tony's neck, his breath hot against the skin as he held Tony tight to his chest. 

Tony wrapped his arms around Steve even as he was lifted off the floor. Steve was speaking against his neck, muffled words barely there audible promises to do better, to be better. Sweet Jesus, Steve was every inch a superhero. He was stubborn, way too vocal about doing and being right and just, but overall, he just so damn good. Tony, even in the haze of whatever spell that had blanketed the room knew that. Knew it in his bones. 

Shut up brain, just shut up for five fucking seconds, stop thinking and just feel this. We're not going to ever get this again, there will never be a second time. Once Steve remembers all of the shit that happened between them, once he remembers Bucky it will all be over. So just stop thinking your way out of what you've wanted since you were seventeen and let it happen. 

Tony shifted his head just enough and Steve got the hint taking Tony's mouth in a deep kiss. There was no where he could hide from that kiss. Steve opened him bare, cradling Tony's head in one hand, the other holding Tony up off the floor. Tony had kissed a lot of people in his life, he had some truly fantastic experiences with actors, models, a brief fling with a professor when he was in college. They ranged in intensity but none of them compared to what Steve Rogers was doing to him in that moment. Steve's technique wasn't smooth, but he was thorough. Alternating between deep soul-searing kisses with soft trails down the column of Tony's neck. Scraping his teeth delicately against the skin of Tony's collarbone. 

Steve's cock pressed hard into Tony's abdomen and Tony felt a hysterical giggle burst from his lips as he tried to catch his breath. Air rushed from his lungs as Steve ground his cock against Tony. He thought Steve was going to drag his pants down here in the office, pressed against the wall clinging to him. Kinky as the thought was, he had a better idea. He tapped Steve's shoulder and pushed off the wall. It was a bit like moving concrete only this one moved and had an adorably distant look in his eyes. 

Steve's lips were swollen, slightly parted and even the super soldier was breathing heavily, face flushed and not quite sure what was happening beyond yes, this, and more. Before logic could intercede and cooler heads prevail, Tony wrapped his legs around Steve's waist and rubbed against him. He was rewarded with Steve shuddering against him and trying to push them back against the wall. 

"I have a better idea and it involves a bed," Tony said, pushing them off the wall again. 

"Kay." Steve turned around and carried Tony out of the room and navigated the first floor of the house admirably despite trying to go back to kissing Tony. Tony wasn't complaining when they got sidetracked by the sofa for a few minutes and then again on the landing when Steve bent down and they ended up on the floor. 

Tony's skin felt too hot under his clothes and he shrugged out of his shirt, pulling and tugging at the fabric between kisses and throwing it aside and tackling Steve's shirt with the same urgency. His hands shook and his heart was beating so fast he couldn't catch a breath. Steve was staring at him too intently again and he needed them both naked and working their way to fucking soon. Tony could handle that, he couldn't handle the questions and raw emotion that Steve displayed every time he looked at Tony. 

Some things just couldn't be healed, and Tony's pathological inability to handle intimacy and vulnerability were well documented with every therapist he'd ever visited. 

Steve for his part didn't ask any of the questions that were bursting behind his expression. He pressed his lips against the scars that criss crossed over Tony's chest. The delicate brush, a gentle feathering against markings that were hypersensitive to the oddest of touches. They tingled where Steve touched them, pins and needles left in the wake of Steve's lips, Tony's breath hitched and dug his fingers into Steve's shoulders. Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, blinding him as Steve left his mark against Tony's chest for a second time. As if wiping away that terrible action with something infinitely kinder. 

His chest hurt, pressure and tightness built as the trail of pins and needles spread out from the centre. He needed to take control of this or his stupid emotions were going to get in the way of his libido. Tony grabbed Steve by the belt and tugged flipping them around so that he was sitting on top. Distraction was key and he rolled against Steve, cocking his hips with enough twist that Steve was riding up against him, strong hands were on his thighs, pulling him down harder. He grabbed Steve's hands, laced their fingers together and pressed off of Steve. Tony clumsily stood and dragged Steve with him into the bedroom. 

He had just enough of the upper hand to push Steve's jeans off, before Steve flicked his hands easily along the belt of Tony's trousers and way too easily had them undone and around Tony's knees. The next moments were a blur of touches and kissing as they climbed onto the bed. Tony was very glad he'd had the forethought to include protection and lube as part of outfitting the bedroom, even if contemplating the very Catholic Steve Rogers masturbating both intensely hot and oddly hilarious. 

He couldn't repress the giggle building behind his lips as Steve coated his fingers in lube and pressed his thick index finger along the sensitive line of skin behind Tony's balls. Steve leaned forward, pressing kisses to the inside of Tony's thigh. 

"Should I ask you what has you laughing. Surely it's not my technique. I'm pretty certain this move right here is one of your favourites." Steve slid first one finger along his entrance, pressing firmly as he swiped his tongue across the head of Tony's cock. 

Tony broke out into a sweat, his skin damp and the air suddenly chilled. He let out a string of curses and pressed down on Steve's hand, seeking more. 

"Ngh, not laughing at this," he breathed out. "Just can't reconcile the image you, the prim and proper Catholic, taking advantage of everything I put in that drawer." 

Steve quirked an eyebrow but instead of taking the bait he played dirty. Tony saw stars as Steve wrapped his lips around Tony's cock; swallowed him down in a way that seemed wholly at odds with his usual demeanour. There was a lot he didn't know about Steve, and the chasm opened at his feet and fell away before him. Tony didn't care. Didn't give one blistering thought more to it as Steve opened him up and wrung pleasure out of him with each swipe of his tongue and flick of his fingers. 

Steve didn't stop his coordinated strike, drawing Tony out, taut as a bowstring, easing off before he tipped Tony over the edge. Slowing his fingers down. Sliding his mouth back up. Alternating shallow and deep, never letting Tony figure out which to pay attention to more. Tony shook on bed, writhed and tried to pull Steve up to him, to kiss him, to get more. He begged, words fell from his lips between gasping breaths. Promises, pleas, anything that would get Steve to fuck him. Steve ignored them all focusing his attention on opening Tony up, spreading him wide with each added digit. 

Every bit of burn was lost to the pleasure Steve favoured Tony's cock with, the rough friction of his tongue, the hollow pressure of being sucked down. Steve added more lube, cold and wet against the heat of Steve's hand, and Tony let out a yell as Steve pressed his hand inside him. He was off the bed save for his heels and shoulders, the crescendo snapped and Tony lost touch with coherent subject matter as his brain whited out from pleasure. 

His breath stuttered in his chest and he felt Steve slide his hand out from him and turn Tony over, adjusting the pillows until Tony let out moans as the soft cotton of the pillow case brushed against his very sensitive cock. Steve shifted behind him and he Tony sighed as Steve sank inside him. The pressure was heady but Tony felt boneless in the bed as Steve held Tony up against his chest, one hand splayed over the old scar on his chest, the other holding his hips in place while Steve set a steady, unrelenting pace. The movement of Steve's hips were slow and steady, building on the same rhythm of his fist moments before.

Tony couldn't see, sweat poured off him and he couldn't focus on any visual information. His entire focus was on Steve Rogers wrapped around him, Steve's lips against his neck and collarbone. His fingers pressing firmly into Tony's flesh. Tony’s post orgasm lassitude was replaced with fire crackers of pleasure that flickered in and out of his existence on his nerves. He twitched and moaned, rocked back into Steve's thrusts, clenching around him, begging him to go faster, harder. 

Steve tightened his hold on Tony and snapped his hips, letting loose, picking up his speed as he let go of his restraint. Clumsy, Tony turned his head and tried to catch Steve in a kiss. It didn't quite work the way movies do but Steve's lips mashed against his and then down his jaw were better than any picture perfect kiss could be. 

Steve let out a moan behind him and grabbed Tony's hips with both hands and fucked him in earnest. He knew Steve was close when he lost all sense of coordination, and his hips began to stutter against Tony's ass as Steve cursed and rode out his orgasm. Steve's hand reached around and grasped Tony's very sensitive, very interested cock and roughly stroked him. 

Steve's hips never stopped, and Steve groaned against Tony's back, still achingly hard and ready for round two. Tony had to wonder if the refractory periods for super soldiers were a myth and he let out a groan as Steve pounded into him. Climaxes were further out the second time, as nerves built over and over, fizzling and rekindling with each stroke. 

Tony pressed his face into the pillow, yelling as Steve fucked him into the bed. Familiar tightness crested and Tony bellowed as he came a second time, clenching tightly around Steve's cock and holding him tight. Steve groaned but didn't lose his rhythm, even when Tony felt him shudder and come inside him again. 

Steve wasn't finished and didn't lose a single step as he pounded into Tony who collapsed on the bed and shuddered as his sensitivity hit a high note. He let out a whine and clung to the pillows as Steve cursed and thrust and sobbed above him, lost in the haze as much as Tony. The pleasure bordered well into pain but Tony had never been one to shy away from pain when it offered him even a modicum of pleasure. He knew Steve should stop, but he didn't want him to, only managed to clumsily reach for the lube and shove it back into Steve's hand. 

Steve, even lost as he was, got the hint and still long enough to add more cold slick before dragging Tony's hips back up and holding him tight as he thrust hard. A handful of moments later, Steve let out another yell and his hips finally lost their stride as he came sharply. He collapsed on the bed, rolling over and taking Tony with him, lethargic now that his personal limit had been hit. 

Tony shook and twitched in Steve's arms, hypersensitive and well fucked. Steve pressed his back against the back of Tony's neck and held him tightly against his chest, breathing heavy and trembling on his own. 

*** 

The penthouse elevator opened, revealing the dark interior of the suite. 

"You have five minutes, Mr. Stark and then you leave." 

Tony sighed, had he ever been that pretentious? He'd have to ask Pepper, she'd know. He'd buy a school to make up for it. Screw it, he'd do that anyway, just in case. Maybe donate to a children's hospital. Both. He stepped beyond the foyer and into the main living area of the mausoleum, apartment. It was sterile and barely touched, save for the man at the table. Dr. Strange didn't bother standing, his hands were hidden under the table and he looked a little ragged around the edges. 

So this was how he got around saying no to Rhodey. It was sneaky and underhanded to know that the preeminent neurosurgeon of the day had passed on his friend's case, but Tony didn't care. He also didn't care if Strange tried to say no today. He wasn't going to get that chance. 

"Dr. Strange?" He asked by way of introduction. 

"Yes, what do you want, I'm not taking cases. I've told you this before, Mr. .Stark." 

"Hm, and yet here I am. Professional curiosity won out it seems." Tony said and flicked the image from his phone onto the table in front of Strange. Medical files scrubbed of their more sensitive information filled the dark surface. Medical jargon Tony still wasn't quite sure of, and lots of diagrams and X-rays, MRI results. Everything a growing neurosurgeon might need. 

"Who's the patient?" 

"Names don't matter, you have the entire file." 

"Tracking bullet lodged in the {correct terms for behind the right ear sinus]?, hypothermia, pulmonary edema from secondary drowning. Patient, redacted, redacted.. but all seven neurosurgeons you've spoken with can't figure out what's going on. All signs point out that he's recovered from everything, attempts to dislodge the bullet so far unsuccessful, and now memory involvement has been noted. Patient currently remains in an induced coma on ... meds that would kill anyone else." Strange looked up. "So tell me Stark, why are you helping Captain Rogers?" 

Tony pursed his lips. "Good, you're hired." 

"I didn't accept, Stark," Strange countered with a growl. "I can't do the surgery you need. And I don't consult." 

"That perfect record of yours?" Tony quipped. Strange's eyes narrowed. "It's amazing what someone can find out when they're shopping for the best neurosurgeon. You'll be pleased to know that everyone I spoke to mentioned you first, then offered me their second choice. Five were kind enough to say you're worse than House but actually get the job done. Only one mentioned your accident. All of them mentioned your ego and your record." 

"I demand perfection in my work. You understand that. You built the Iron Man suits, you know what perfection is." 

"No, I don't. Perfection doesn't exist, sweetheart. It's a false concept and it's ruined more in robotics than it helps. Offer on the table Strange, the standard consulting fee plus 25%, you don't have to travel, you don't need to see the patient. Read the files, tell me what you think, and offer your best next steps and that's money in the bank for you." 

"One, I don't need the money.-" 

"You will."

"Two, why the hell would I offer any advice on how to fix a traitor. This should be good news for you Stark. One less rogue agent for you and your super friends." 

"Let's get one thing straight you narcissistic, paltry excuse for a Sherlock Holmes reject. Steve Rogers is not and has never been a traitor. The US government is a hell pit and couldn't wipe their own ass without finding Nazis, and they disavowed the one person who could do something about their shit. You passed on saving Colonel Rhodes because his condition might have hurt your record. He's fine by the way, they put him back together and my tech got him walking again, no thanks to you." 

"I was at the bottom of a lake at the time of surgery, Stark." 

"Not an excuse. Look at the files, outline a plan and get back to me with it ASAP. I'm not a patient man." Tony tossed a small drive onto the table, the files flickered as they flipped from his phone to the drive. Tony turned on his heel and headed back to the elevator. He had one other person to talk to in New York and then he had to get back to the facility. He couldn't be away for much longer.

"It's his healing factor."

Tony stopped. 

"He had hypothermia and secondary drowning, both conditions he's had in the past from his trip into the ice. Couple that with what the serum had healed, asthma, heart arrhythmia, angina, palpitations, partial deafness. He had scarlet and rheumatic fever and survived both entirely due to his mother's interventions." 

"That isn't in the file." 

"If you think they don't give lectures on the ethics of eugenics programs in medical science and not use the poster boy for said programs you don't understand how universities and med schools work." Strange waved a bandaged hand and pointed vaguely back at the table. "The serum fixed it all, but it also gave him an exponential healing factor. There are theories in the medical world that due to how the serum interacted with Rogers DNA it's targeted to fix those specific injuries." 

Tony turned around. "I'm listening." 

Strange got to his feet, the bathrobe he wore hung open as he paced the length of the room by the windows. "Most of Rogers is a state secret, you can't get access to three-quarters of his medical files that include mentions of the serum unless you know someone who knows someone. But the British were doing similar experiments around the same time. Over the last few years documents have been released, heavily redacted but I had a professor that was especially interested in the ethical quandary that Steve Rogers poses so there were a few classes on the subject. I mostly ignored them since eugenics and genetic tampering wouldn't get me closer to neurosurgery. 

“Anyway it doesn't matter, what matters is that Rogers coming out of the ice unharmed and still in his twenties has led most biologists to believe he's effectively immortal. He has a healing factor, yes? His metabolism must be through the roof, and judging by the dosages of the medications to keep him in the coma he must power through even rudimentary meds. Whatever happened, when Rogers was shot and fell into the water -- the evidence is here, hypothermia and secondary drowning with pulmonary edema speak for themselves. He landed in icy water, couldn't rescue himself because of the bullet, the shock to his system and that same shock was just similar enough to going in the ice the first time that his healing factor took over. 

His body is in a cycle of rapid healing, it's maintaining stasis and trying to fix what's not part of the original patterning when the serum was injected. The problem is that not only did the healing factor heal around the tracking bullet, it's forcefully trying to remove it. Based on its location it's somehow wrapped itself around the nerves exiting through a sinus cavity and has burrowed itself into the temporal lobe, specifically affecting any number of the processes that control memory retention, recall, and generation. Since it's blocking itself around a nerve it's misfiring the electric signals and causing any number of symptoms from migraines to seizures." 

Tony waited for Strange to run out of words or get to a treatment plan, no one became this excited just because he found a new puzzle. Nothing happened. Strange started looking over the files available and muttering to himself becoming more excited as his assumptions were no doubt proven true. 

"C'mon, Strange, treatment options, plans, something I can take back with me so we can get this sorted. I didn't come here with a thought experiment, I came here with a man's life on the line." 

Strange looked up from the table and shrugged. "You have to find a way to stop his healing factor long enough to remove the tracker and it's filaments." Strange waved his bandaged hand uselessly. "I don't know anyone else that has the dexterity to do the surgery even under those circumstances. Short of that you need to find a way to short circuit the tracker itself. That should stop the seizures at least." 

"What else?" 

"What do you mean what else, Stark?" 

"The risks to him, numbnuts. You want me to target a short into Rogers brain, what the fucking hell could that do to him?" 

"At worst, kill him. At best, it might allow him to wake up with a few issues. The brain is complicated, Stark. Traumatic brain injuries are hard to predict. He might end up with no memories and no ability to formulate them. He might have all of his memories but out of order. He might not have access to his memories. That doesn't include any of the other issues that happen when the amygdala, hippocampus and thalamus are potentially involved in traumatic brain injuries. Personality changes are also common during these events." Strange shrugged as if that was it. 

Tony's jaw twitched and nodded. "Thank you doctor, I'll have the money wired to your account by end of business today." 

Fuck them all, he was going to fix this. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you don't have to go searching, Art for this fic is present in this chapter and here's the link: < a href="https://hayluhalo.tumblr.com/post/180762754871/my-contribution-for-the-capiron-man-bigbang-event">ART

Tony woke to dread building in his stomach that he just did the absolute worst thing he could have ever done. The ache in his backside added counterpoint to the fear spreading through his chest. Beyond the small sphere of guilt and terror Tony could make out the soft sound of Steve breathing beside him. 

He’d left many a bed before the other party awoke, gone before the sheets could cool. They’d never been super soldiers with ridiculous hearing and reflexes which complicated matters. They also didn’t have the perfect stretch of bare skin, muscles that shifted with each breath. Tony’s face grew hot. 

He slipped from the sheets, scooped up his clothes on the way out the door and prayed the rugs would keep the floor from squeaking. 

Once out of the room he fled down the hall. He was not running away. He most definitely was not fleeing naked through his parents’ home desperate for sanctuary of any kind. 

Tony ducked into a room on the opposite wing from Steve’s and leant against the door until his panicked heart settled down. He didn’t hear any footsteps following him. He couldn’t hear anything on the other side of the door. He might be safe. 

Stupid, Tony. Really fucking stupid. Sleeping with the amnesiac is always the best way to go. Doesn’t complicate a fucking thing does it? He slid down the door and he groaned, as he felt cold floor against his bare ass. He needed a shower and to get as far the fuck away from Long Island as possible. Staying here wasn’t an option. He couldn’t be around Steve the way he was, he wasn’t strong enough to keep him at arm's length. 

Tony definitely wasn’t strong enough to handle things when they eventually fucked up and he was left alone. VIsions of the night before danced about his head, unpleasant reminders that they would be there forever. He knew what Steve felt like, knew the touch of his skin. He knew how Steve sounded when he lost control. 

Fuck sakes. 

Tony got to his feet and took stock of the room he fled into. The walnut floor spread away from him, uncovered save for the layers of dust. A large desk dominated the centre of the room, the white sheet atop it unable to hide the harsh lines. The bookcases along the walls were covered in dust and yet it remained exactly as he had remembered it. His father’s study. Just fucking perfect. 

***

"You want to do what, Tony?" Fury stood near the glass in the observation room. Steve was behind the glass, an army of medical staff around him, working with disturbing efficiency. How were they not freaking out. Tony was freaking out. Steve was hours out of the water, days out of the water, had been brought back three times, but the cold and hypothermia still clung to him. His skin was still too pale, translucent even. He wasn't fighting. He should be fighting. 

"I want to hook him up to BARF." 

"Why?"

"Something is happening with his brain." 

"We still have to operate to remove the bullet, once that's out we'll look at other options." 

Tony flicked the scans on his phone to the glass in front of Fury. 

"I've seen the results, Tony, do not patronize me. I'm just as worried as you are." 

"Did you see the look on the neurosurgeon’s faces when they saw this? They're freaking out. This has them worried. More than the hypothermia they can't get rid of, more than finding out that the super serum forces a stasis when severely damaged." 

"Then why didn't it happen after DC?" 

"I don't know, Nick. Maybe it requires his heart to stop for longer than thirty seconds. Maybe DC wasn't actually bad enough to kick start it. Maybe this is more a result of him going in the ice and since they found him floating half frozen this is how his super powers keep him safe.

"It doesn't matter, something is happening and we need to figure it out." 

"What does that brain tech have to do with it? What are you planning?"

"BARF can record his memories, personality, brain activity. It gives us something to work with -- if they fuck up trying to take the bullet out." Tony felt his stomach twist. Good thing he hadn't eaten in forty hours. vomiting here and now at the thought of Steve brain dead wasn't on his top ten list. 

"You want to upload Steve Rogers into a computer."

"No, I want to preserve his memories, and his brain scans so that we can fix him and get him back. I  _ want _ him to get off that table and beat the shit out of me for being here. I want him be fighting, to be doing anything. But you pulled him from the water a week ago, he's been in an out of consciousness since, his mind is fucked. If he calls me Howard one more time... I'm -- I'm I don't know what I'm going to do, but something is off and if we don't get in there to preserve what he's got, he might never recover. 

"You seem awfully sure he won't die." 

"Steve is too stubborn to let me have the last word like this." 

***

Day One after their encounter and Tony was avoiding him.

  
He’d stick around in the same room if Steve walked in, but his conversation would be stilted, with a forced evenness to his voice that Steve wasn’t buying. Tony soon found reasons not to be in the same room. A feat considering three quarters of the house was under dust cloths and falling apart. Steve wanted to talk. Needed to talk. He’d tried several times to bring up what had happened between them, but Tony would dodge and Steve would find himself in an empty room.    
He found himself doing that a lot lately. Any time he made a decision things became fuzzy around the edges and he’d be two rooms sideways and three hours had past.    
He didn’t tell Tony about it. When Tony bothered to look at him he did so in a manner of a project that needed fixing, a problem that required solving.    
Steve wasn’t going to add one more thing for Tony to try and fix. Was that why he was avoiding him? Did it have to do with the head injury?    
Screw it, he’d make ---    
  


***

  
Day Four after their… encounter, and Tony was avoiding Steve. 

  
Steve tried to ignore it. Tried to keep to his own things, stay in his room or go to the kitchen. But thoughts of Tony followed him everywhere. When he and Tony were in the same room, Tony was flippant, off the cuff, as if nothing was bothering him. 

Which meant everything was bothering him.    
Steve couldn’t stand the easy neutral tone Tony affected when he answered Steve. 

There was another problem. The time jumps were happening all over the place. If he was in the room with Tony he could remember everything that happened, all of their discussions no matter how stilted and awkward. He could hold onto his decisions and onto his train of thought. Tony acted like an anchor, his presence a solid buffer against the worst of headaches and questions that lingered in his brain. 

When they weren’t around each other, Steve couldn’t guarantee anything. He’d planned on getting a glass of milk from the kitchen and found himself asleep in the games room. He had awakened so suddenly the resulting dust storm sent him into a fit of sneezing. That at least had brought Tony to him quickly enough, but nothing was said when there was no life threatening situation and Tony quickly disappeared again.   
  


***

Day Eight after their encounter and Tony was avoiding him. Running from his apologies, said to Tony’s retreating back. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for now. The fight from a few months ago, the phone call, or the sex. 

Tony stopped in the doorway. 

“Would you stop apologizing,” Tony grunted. He didn’t stick around and went downstairs into the basement. 

*** 

Day Ten after their encounter and Tony was avoiding him. He never slept in the same room twice. Steve wandered the empty halls alone and the house seemed to expand around him, getting bigger and lonelier the more he explored. 

Tony screamed. 

Steve ran. 

Tony screamed again. Steve threw open the door racing to Tony’s side as he fell off the couch in a tangle of blankets. Steve touched his shoulder and Tony jerked, fist coming up to catch Steve’s jaw. 

Steve fell back, Tony scrambled away, the two of them staring at one another, Tony’s breath coming in sharp gasps. Steve’s jaw aching dully. 

“Are we too late, is he here?”

“Is who here, Tony? You were having a nightmare,” Steve said shaking himself free of his hesitation. He reached out to help Tony to his feet but Tony ignored him and stormed out of library. 

“I’ve got to go… I need to work on something in the basement.”

***

Day twelve after their encounter and Steve woke up at the end of the treadmill. Tony stood over him, concern clear in his eyes along with something else. Steve sat up and his stomach twisted with his vision. 

“Hold still, you’ve had a fall.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that.” 

"I am fine. I did something stupid but I’m fine now." Steve pushed Tony’s hands away. He clamped his jaw shut against the wave of nausea as he stood but he managed it. 

"Friday, is he lying? I swear you're worse than the teenager in queens." 

"What teenager?" 

"Not important. You, however are very important and I need you to be more careful. How hard is it to run on a treadmill?” 

“Kind of hard when your husband won’t talk to you unless you’re actively bleeding. How’d you know I was here? You’ve been locked in that basement for days now.” 

A look crossed Tony’s face and he turned away from Steve. “I had Friday installed here. I told you she’d be on the lookout in case anything happened." 

"I thought you meant as security, not as my babysitter. It's actually kind of creepy, Tony. I get that I was injured, I get that you are worried, and I might even appreciate your concern if you actually showed any.. But you've got me on lockdown, in the middle of nowhere, and you have a computer monitoring my vital signs, when you can’t even be bothered to have a cup of coffee with me in the morning." 

"Well, when you put it like that," Tony huffed. “Friday has one camera in the foyer and the kitchen to monitor those two exits, otherwise no other surveillance." 

"Do you trust me, Tony?" 

"Of course." Immediate response, no hesitation. 

“Then why won’t you fucking talk to me? Stop the concern through Friday and actually talk to me.” 

"You think it’s that fucking simple? You get to forget the worst moments between us, the absolute worst moment of my fucking life and you think I can just shove it to one side because you want to talk? I don’t even get to have a real argument with you. Don’t fucking start with me, Rogers. You don’t get to make demands on me." 

"I’m not making demands, Tony, I’m asking you to speak with me, to talk to me. I can’t remember what happened, but that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out how to go on from there.” 

"It kind of fucking does. I can’t hold you accountable, and you can’t apologize for something you can’t remember. You’ve hurt me, and I’m trapped.” 

Steve’s breath hitched. “Leave, then. I’m not going to keep you here.” 

Tony wasn't speaking but Steve could hear the tiny hitches in his breath he was trying to cover. "Fine, fuck this, fuck Fury, and fuck you, Rogers.” 

“Don’t let the fucking door hit you on the ass.” Steve bit the inside of his cheek and tried to keep the tension from building in his shoulders. 

Steve jumped as the door slammed and he sat on the floor for a few minutes in silence, looking at nothing in particular. 

"Friday." 

"Yes, Steve?"

"Exactly what does Tony have in place here for security, and for monitoring purposes." 

"Twelve exterior cameras connected via wi-fi and satellite to his private server. They are continuous feed cameras and can be accessed from any device in the house. I have turned off the two interior cameras, and am no longer monitoring your vital signs." 

"Why were you monitoring my vital signs, Friday?"

"Prior to Mr. Stark moving you to this location you were at high risk for seizure activity, your entire system was in shock due to extensive trauma and at times you would develop respiratory distress." 

"I haven't had those symptoms recently." 

"Correct, but you still are displaying signs of brain trauma with periods of memory loss. I’ve been following your signs and you have anywhere from one to three headaches per day. Often leading to migraines. They have dropped off significantly in intensity but I'm going only by passive monitoring." 

Steve cringed, his head felt fuzzy from waking up on the floor and the aftereffects of falling off the treadmill but he hadn't thought they were that bad. "How do you know they're all migraines, Friday?"

"Light and sound sensitivity beyond what your past behaviours would indicate." 

"So you are used to monitoring me."

"I am programed to monitor everything that happens in all of the boss’s properties." 

"Why did Tony program you with those parameters?" 

Silence filled the room and he wanted to Friday to answer him, but perhaps she wasn't going to, maybe he had gone beyond what she was allowed to tell him.

"Mr. Stark has increased your permissions on my program, I require several minutes to update." 

Friday shut down before Steve could say anything. Nothing else had changed save for a subtle shift in the emptiness of the room. This was the longest discussion he'd had with the AI program -- jailer? -- since he woke up. It felt wrong that the house could be that empty without even a piece of Tony in it. There were no pictures, no sentimental bits. The furniture was covered in tarps and dust or so old they needed to be tossed. 

The only part of Tony in the house, the real touches of him, was Friday. The place didn’t feel like their home. Steve had a sense of their home being warmer, full of life and with many more people around. His memories were as illusive as smoke, but the emotions behind them were so real they hit with all the subtlety of a heavyweight boxer’s right hook. The emptiness of the house grew, he couldn’t hear anything outside of the room, no sounds of traffic, not even the sound of the forest beyond the property line. Tony had left, Steve didn’t kid himself, he’d pushed and Tony followed through. He hadn’t moved from the floor, wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave the gym ever after the argument with Tony. He’d fucked up, he’d pushed and pushed, and now he got what he wanted. Tony no longer hovering over him like he was an injured pet, but now Tony was just gone and he wouldn’t be coming back. 

"Parameters reset, you now have complete access to the house and security, you have also been given the status of priority one." 

Steve jumped, so lost in his thoughts that Friday's voice startled him. "Priority one?"

"Tony has adjusted your status in all of my programming so that you have the same administrative capacity as he does." 

"Wait. But he programmed you. Why would he give me that much power?" 

"Mr. Stark has given you the ability to turn me off, Steve. I won't shut down completely, but I will no longer be monitoring this location with the same permissions as I do for other locations." 

"You still haven't told me why he has set you to monitor things so closely." 

"Security analysis, I have baseline statistics for all those close to Mr. Stark, to maintain their safety, as much to maintain his. Mr. Stark also has a history of panic disorder and frequently high anxiety and PTSD. I have protocols in place that will be triggered depending on the health of either you or Mr. Stark. 

"Why, Friday? What happened?"

"The likelihood of you suffering from another blackout as the result of that information is 87%, Steve. 

Steve got to his feet smoothly. “I'm willing to take the 13% chance to understand Tony a bit more here, Friday."

Nothing. 

"Friday."

"Very well, Steve. But please take some precautions for your safety." 

"What do you suggest?" 

"Wait until the morning, follow the doctor's orders for your migraines and take the medication in the lavatory and sleep tonight. In the morning I will do as you ask." 

Steve grunted, felt tension build between his shoulder blades and up his neck. He wanted to know now, he needed to know. "You won't keep anything out?"

"I will adjust your influence and presence in Mr. Stark's files as far as necessary to mitigate potential seizures. You appear to be able to acquire new information and historical information so long as it doesn't directly influence your personal history. Unfortunately that means later files with Mr. Stark will be redacted." 

"Okay, fine, I'll do as you say but only because I need to know him better than I feel like I do." 

***

Tony was out of the house and on the road fuming, blasting the angriest music he could tolerate as he navigated the same stretch of road his parents had been murdered on five years ago. The woods on either side crowded around him he floored the gas, running from the memories and from Steve. 

“The roads aren’t meant for you to be going this fast, Boss,” Friday’s voice cut in over the music. 

“Don’t care, need to leave,” he bit out. 

“Tony, crashing on this road is not what you need right now. Please slow down.” 

He had to go and create systems that cared about him, didn’t he? At least someone, or something did. He turned the music down and slowed to a less fatalistic speed. “Better?” 

“Marginally,” Friday quipped.

“Take care of him, Friday. I can’t go back there so set him as priority one.” 

“Are you sure, Boss?” 

“Yes, Friday, Steve is priority one for the Long Island location. Now charter me a flight as far the fuck away from here possible.” 

***

The next morning, after his second cup of coffee, Friday finally gave him the information he sought.

"In 2008, Tony Stark was demonstrating new weapons for the military and the US effort in Afghanistan and during the course of travel was set upon by the group known as the Ten Rings. He was subsequently injured, kidnapped, tortured, and held captive for three months in order to make weapons for the rogue terrorist group. During that first firefight, Tony was injured requiring medical interventions to keep metallic shards from his heart. A doctor by the name of Ho Yinsen had been kidnapped by the Ten Rings, developed a method to keep the metal from entering Mr Stark's heart, but it was Tony, with Yinsen’s help, who created the arc reactor that kept Tony alive from late 2008 to 2013 when doctors successfully removed the reactor and the shards from his blood stream. 

"While there are no schematics available publicly for the arc reactor technology, all papers, mentioning the technology, name Ho Yinsen with Tony and Howard Stark as creators. 

"Tony was able to use the weapons and technology available to fashion a way to escape. Upon returning to the US he discovered his business partner to be behind his kidnapping and became embroiled in a coup to take over Stark Industries. Following the events of the failed take over, Tony has become a target for growing criminal organizations and competing government departments. Tony has refused to work with anyone without going through a comprehensive vetting process."

Out of the corner of his eye the tablet screen blinked and he saw still images of Tony kidnapped, held at gunpoint by who he assumed were the Ten Rings. The tech in his chest -- which explained the scars but not the guilt Steve felt when he looked at them. Still images of him in front of a government tribunal and the number of times both his homes faced some kind of breach, including his Malibu home blowing up in late 2013. 

Steve felt a rock settle in his stomach and the back of his head twinge as he looked over the information Friday gave him. This wasn’t right, there were pieces missing, he was missing. "I'm not part of any of this, Friday?" 

"I determined that mentions of your involvement are what triggers the seizure activity. I have excised what I can from the text about Tony's history so that I may answer you question honestly and still decrease the risks you face."

"So there is more," he said, not sure if he believed one man capable of dealing with so much. 

"Yes, Steve. But any more information would likely cause a full seizure."

"I seem to bounce back from them quickly enough." 

"Your ability to heal is one thing, willingly and consistently pushing beyond what you can handle has the chance of causing serious and lasting damage. Not only to your memories and associated functions, but there is no telling what other damage you could do."

Steve stared into the coffee cup, memories swirled around his head, a swarm of conflicting pieces of information. They were getting worse, the longer Tony was away the less certain he was of what was going on. If he didn’t get something started that required his full attention he’d be useless in a few days. He didn’t want to do something pointless, his entire life here surreal, fake. 

The only person that felt real was Tony. And he’d pushed him away again. 

“Friday, can you contact Tony for me?”

“I’m sorry Steve, but he’s not accepting any contact for the time being. There is a message available if you’d like to hear it.” 

“What’s he doing, Friday?” 

“He’s doing humanitarian aid in Mumbai as a result of the earthquake.” 

“Does he usually do that?”

“When the Boss is feeling guilty he tends to go and fix things until he’s feeling better. I can show you some news reports if you’d like.” 

“No.” He sighed, “I made a mistake, Friday. I need to know it all, I need to know everything you’re keeping from me.” 

“Steve, I can’t do that.” 

“Yes, you can, I’m priority one, remember.” 

“This could backfire, Steve, we don’t know how you’re going to react.” 

“I don’t care. If I’m going to get my husband back, I need to know what I’m missing, and that includes everything about me.” 

***

Fly. Suit. More flying. Danger. Disaster relief. Ignore Ross. Ignore Fury. Ignore the guilt. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

Nights bled into days. A flood in Haiti turned into an earthquake in Venezuela. It wasn’t beating bad guys up, it was damage control. It was watching the news while fixing injuries the suit couldn’t prevent. It was watching his country forget the last fifty years as Drumpf honked and blurted out whatever he could to get a reaction. 

Tony didn’t think of what Steve would think of what was happening. He didn’t think about how they left things. He ignored phone calls from Pepper and from Rhodey. He went to another country and did whatever he could to help people and make up for all the mistakes he’d made in the past. 

Three weeks of disasters. Twenty one days of running on fumes and spite. He ran away from Long Island and all of his problems right into a missile he couldn’t dodge. The updated tech had him in its sights and Tony couldn’t bank fast enough to get out of the way. Panic speared him as he tried to twist and fly through around mountains to lose his tail only to keep seeing the blip on his screen get every closer. 

He was going to die. 

The payload on the missile heading his way was too much for the suit and if the blast didn’t kill him the impact with the ground would finish him off. 

“Friday, ca-”

“Incoming on your ten, Boss.” 

Tony braced for impact from the missile, air rushed from his lungs as Iron Patriot knocked into him and the two spun wildly towards the mountain. Tony had just enough sense to hit his repulsors to counter the spin and keep them from hitting the mountain as he watched Vision rip into the missile and pull its guidance system and toss it to the ground. He lost sight of the two of them as Vision took the missile up into the stratosphere. 

He looked over to Rhodey who still held him and he grinned behind the face plate. “Hi.” 

“Don’t you fucking hi me you stupid fucking idiot.” 

“It’s good to see you too Rhodey, how’s the new suit working?”

“Don’t change the subject. This is by far the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.” 

“I’m sure I’ve done stupider things.” 

“No, this is peak stupid Tony. This fucking ridiculous, we’re going home.” 

“How’d you find me?” 

“Fury.” 

“That is totally not fair.” 

“When was the last time you slept?” 

“Can’t remember, doesn’t matter. Sleep sucks.” 

“Too bad.” 

Rhodey was pissed, he wasn’t joking, he wasn’t even laughing. Tony had to admit that maybe he was pushing things, but the lack of sleep and the near death hysteria was making it hard to take anything seriously. He broke out into giggles and thankfully Vision returned to give him a hand flying since he couldn’t do much of anything. 

Tony didn’t remember them landing, and he had to admit at least to himself he’d been pushing too hard. Things happen, people needed saving and Ross wasn’t working fast enough to get the proper approval. Disasters still happened so Tony was going to fix this things and Ross and anyone else could fuck off. 

Especially Steve. 

He might need to revisit his stance on grudges. For the moment, he had bigger things to deal with, like passing out. 

***

Nausea twisted his stomach. 

There wasn’t anything left to vomit. His head felt split open from the nape of his neck and across his skull to meet between his eyes. He’d silenced Friday’s alarms, refused to let her send out a call to either Tony or Fury. He did this to himself and he was going to fucking handle the ride his brain went on while it processed the information. 

So many names, so many meetings. Everything floated up and down in a carnival ride from hell. Names he vaguely remembered in bodies that didn’t look familiar. 

Bucky was somehow his best friend and a childhood sidekick in a mask. He had memories of names that didn’t exist. A kaleidoscope of recollections of Natasha, Clint, Bruce. So many many people and all of them felt so like their memories stretched the bounds of reality. 

Even Tony, his awareness of Tony eclipsed all of them. He couldn’t fit anyone else in around all of what Tony meant to him. He was split open from his heart to his head, an open conduit for all of the many things he and Tony had been a part of. Steve knew they were all real, they’d all happened, he couldn’t tell how he knew, but they were real.

Perhaps they hadn’t happened here, in this place, with this Tony, but he knew they’d been married. He knew they’d had their disagreements in the past. He knew they’d always come back together. It happened no matter the time, no matter the universe. 

He belonged to Tony. 

But not here. Tony didn’t believe, and after the Siberia issue, Steve couldn’t blame him. 

He didn’t remember it as it happened, but Friday had shown him the video feed Tony had taken, every broken moment, every punch. He could hear the pain in his own voice, could feel it in Tony’s. Neither were going to stop, and it took destroying the suit and Steve wished to undo it all. Even as nausea pounded through him and he wondered if he’d ever get up from the bathroom floor, he wanted to reach out to Tony and promise to do better. 

“Fri-” He croaked, his throat sandpaper raw. He rolled over onto his back. The world didn’t get any worse and he closed his eyes, focusing on Tony, pushing the rest to the side. Everything else was too much, even Bucky -- whoever and however he fit into this if they were best friends he’d understand -- he had to focus on one thing and that was Tony. 

With the image of Tony in his head he waited until the rest of his mind recentered. The pain receded with the speed of glaciers and an age passed before he was able to stand and drink some water. 

“Friday, where am I? Specifically, what does this place mean to Tony?” 

“The Stark Mansion is Tony’s family home, his father had the house built in the 1945 after the war effort. Tony was raised between this residence, and the mansion in Manhattan. The Manhattan mansion was sold to charity and renovated to become a community centre and clinic location in advance adding to Stark Enterprises.” 

Things he’d heard settled in place and Steve scrubbed at his face. “His parents were killed nearby, weren’t they Friday?” 

“Yes, Steve.” 

“Can you access my accounts?”

“You have access to all of Tony’s accounts if you need to have something delivered, Steve.” 

“No, this is something I want to do myself.” 

“I need to remind you Steve I’m still very much a computer program despite rudimentary AI. I can infer a lot given certain variables, you however I am unable to infer based on the knowledge I have for you.” 

“I want to do something for him, Friday, and if I don’t start doing something I’m going to end up even worse. So I am going to fix this place up.” 

“I’m not sure I understand your reasoning, Steve. By all accounts the boss has ignored this place since their deaths. And wants nothing to do with it.” 

“He’s kept it, Friday. It’s been here as a reminder of something he’s lost. But it’s still important to him for all of that. So we are going to do something for him.” 

“What do you need?” 

“Access to my accounts, and an architect.” He scratched at the three day growth of stubble. “And I’m going to need a disguise.” 

***

Tony knew he was in the compound in New York by the smell. It reminded him of Steve. Harsh lights turned the inside of his eyelids pink and he covered them to spare his migraine. Bandages scraped against his face and he winced out a groan as he tried to figure out who was in the room with him.

He knew he wasn’t alone, he’d woken up in enough strange places with someone nearby to know the feel of a room when it was empty. According to his therapist that had something to do with his PTSD. Hypervigilance something. Whatever the definition it meant that relaxing was the last thing he was going to do. 

“I know you’re awake, Tony,” Rhodey said. “You can pretend with a lot of people, but not me.” 

He let out the breath he’d been holding and turned his head toward James’ voice. Squinting, he gave him a pained smile. “Hi, Rhodey, thanks for the rescue.” 

“No, we’re not doing this dance again, Tony. We’re going to talk.” 

“Can you turn off the interrogation lights first?” 

“Maybe I wanna keep ‘em on. Maybe you might answer me honestly if I keep them on.” 

“I don’t lie to you, James. I’ve never lied to you.” 

“Except about that time you didn’t tell me you were dying. Or that I had to find out your parents died from the paper, and when I found you, you were seven days without sleep high on who knows what in some bar in Montreal.” 

“Grief does weird things, my friend.” 

The lights snapped off and James sat heavily down next to him. “Stop, Tony. Stop being flippant, stop hiding. If Vision and I hadn’t found you when we did, you’d be a smear on a mountain somewhere.” 

“Serve him right.” 

“Serve who right? Is this about the thing Fury has you doing? What is so difficult that you’d rather get killed in the middle of nowhere than… oh fuck sakes, Tony, is this to do with Rogers?”

Tony sat up, felt the world tilt funny before righting itself and glared at James. “What do you mean does this have to do with Rogers?” 

The incredulous look on James’ face spoke volumes. Tony returned it with a blank one of his own. 

“Seriously, Tony? You think you’ve been at all subtle?” James asked. Before his anxiety could trip off the high score, Rhodey grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. “I’m your best fucking friend, Tony. I knew you were lost on Rogers the moment he showed up in spandex. He made you angry, he had your hackles up before you could even say hi because he pushed back. You two have been dancing around each other for close to a decade.” 

“Shut up shut up shut up shutupshutupshutup.” 

“I will not shut up. Why the hell do you think the whole fucking thing happened the way it did. You two have been pining for each other but too fucking busy fighting with each other to even talk openly for five minutes.” 

“No, no, no, not happening. I’m not listening to this.” Tony slid from the stretcher and limped over to his clothes. “Bad enough you’ve got me emotionally naked, I’m not standing here with my ass hanging out discussing the status of my shrivelled heart.”

“If it was shrivelled I wouldn’t have had to save you from missile attacks on the Latverian border.”

“The hostage taking was getting worse, Rhodey, and Ross wasn’t doing a fucking thing to help. Fury is who the fuck knows where. I had to do something.” 

“We’re not talking about that, I am well aware of your ridiculous need to save everyone no matter the cost to yourself. What has me fucking terrified is how fast you went from on the edge to full bender. Where does Rogers fit into this?” 

Tony opened his mouth to quip something but nothing came to mind. He huffed and pulled on his shirt, trying not to yell out in pain when he lifted his arms. Rhodey came over and gave him a hand. James had always been there for him, even during some fantastically dark times. If James hadn’t been so straight or so polite with Tony’s juvenile fumbling things might have gone differently. 

Tony got the better end of the deal. Tony ended up with the best friend of his life. Rhodey ended up with a fucked up alcoholic with a hero complex. James tapped his forehead.

“Out of there, you’re swirling around the pity drain and you don’t need that with the pain killers we gave you. Talk to me, Tony.” 

“He thinks we’re married,” Tony croaked. He sagged into the nearby chair, unable to stand under the weight of his confession. “He was injured and something got fucked up when they tried to fix it. I wasn’t there and Fury’s staff used BARF and it did something. Now he believes we’re married.” 

“Well, sucks to be him. Exactly how is that your problem, Tony?” 

“We’re still trying to get his memory working right, but he’s in hiding.” Tony stopped and looked around the room, dread prickling along his skin as Rhodey squeezed his shoulder. 

“Vision is scrambling all signals to and from the compound. Jesus, Tony, your fumes are running on fumes. What the hell.” 

A tremble started in the middle of back and spread across his shoulders. He couldn’t keep this going, but nothing was going to give, there were no other options. 

“Steve was hurt, really bad,” Tony finally whispered. “It-- it was touch and go for a bit but he’s better now, the problem is that he’s got his memories fucked up and he believes we’re married, on the outs but married.” 

Rhodey sat in the seat nearby. “Fuck sakes, Tony. Fury get you involved?” 

“Yeah, no one else could fix him.” 

“Bullshit, no one else would feel responsible enough, or stubborn enough to do what you’d do for Steve,” Rhodey grunted. “Fury knew that.” 

“Yeah, but he didn’t figure on the whole marriage thing. That’s all that’s in Steve’s fucked up head,” Tony breathed. “And it’s worse than that. Ross caught wind of us way too soon. Had to go some place I’d knew would be safe. The only place nearby was Dad’s place.” 

Rhodey didn’t say anything, just groaned, and shook his head. 

“Yeah, keeps getting better, Steve freaked out and whatever they did to fix him tied him to Dad’s security system so he can’t fucking leave.” 

Silence fell between them. Only the sound of Tony’s pained breathing could be heard. 

“Did you sleep with him?” 

Tony scoffed. 

Rhodey groaned. “Tony. Tony, you did, didn’t you? Fuck sakes.” 

“Hey, I’m not that bad.” 

“Yes, you are.” 

“I’ve gotten better!”

“Since you fell in love with Rogers, yeah.” 

“You suck, Rhodes, how are you my friend?”

“Because I’m awesome. And I tell you the shit you don’t want to hear,” he said. ”For instance, you should go back there.” 

“What?! What the fuck, Rhodes?”

“I know you, you were there for two weeks, that’s just long enough for you two to sleep together and you to regret it, avoid everything, and of course you two had a fight and you went off trying to kill yourself.” 

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself, fucksakes.” 

“Not arguing about the rest are you?. The two of you can argue about anything and nothing.” 

“How the fuck do you know we were arguing?”

“Because it’s you and Steve. I’ve never met anyone more argumentative than the two of you.” 

“He wasn’t though,” Tony said, sobering. “He was like a kicked puppy, and the more he tried to fix things the angrier I got.” 

“And you ran,” Rhodey sighed, shaking his head. “You can’t run from this, I mean you can if you want and I’ll help you get through it, but, you don’t want to run from this. If you want anything with Steve, if you want there to be more you need to work through what happened between you.”

“One of those things happens to be shooting you out of the sky.” 

“Vision did that and I’ve moved on from the whole thing. You are the master of holding a grudge. But this time it’s going to hurt you more than it’s going to protect you. It’s not going to be easy, nothing with the two of you ever is, but if you run from this now you’ll never know if there could be something more.” 

“What if I can’t forgive him, Rhodey?” 

“You have, otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone and helped him, and you wouldn’t have brought him to Long Island. Doesn’t mean you’re not angry with him, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a bucket of shit to answer for, or that you two are going to get along suddenly. But it does mean that you two can work through it, if you let it happen, and you open up to him.” 

“There’s a big problem with that, in case you’ve forgotten the amnesia thing.” 

“Small hurdle. Just because he can’t remember doesn’t mean he can’t take responsibility for it. Look, it’s not like you’re trying to fix this in a week. But if you want to fix it, and fix it in a way that you two can have a relationship after all is said and done, you need to be there for him now, and call him to task to be there for you.” 

“When did you get this wise?” 

“Dude, I’ve been married for ten years. You don’t last that long in the work we do without a bucket of honesty, patience, and a healthy dose of accountability.” 


	4. Chapter 4

Tony sat drumming his fingers on the metal lab table staring at the box like it would bite him if he moved too fast. 

“It can’t be this hard, I’ve faced terrorists, aliens, fucking evil robots I’ve invented. But not one of those had made me this nervous, or sent me scurrying for cover!” 

“I could check it again for explosives, Boss, if that would help?” Friday chimed in.

“Gah!” Frustration and embarrassment won, tearing open the box he dumped the contents onto the table and stared at an unassuming envelope and crappy burner phone.

He felt his throat constrict when he saw Steve’s careful cursive on the envelope. He smacked his face a couple of times. Sentimentality at his own name should be peak fucking narcissism. 

The paper was way too thick to be a cheap hotel paper pad, he’d written this in Wakanda. There was no letterhead. Steve’s writing was small, crisp.

_ Tony,  _

_~~I’m glad you’re back at the compound~~ , _

_ I hope you’re safe and healing.  _

_ I cannot make excuses for the things that happened between us, I know I’ve hurt you, and I do not know how to mend the damage I’ve done. I am sorry for the pain I have caused, in withholding information from you. I left you open to Zemo’s manipulation and I cannot change that.  _

_ I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen, and fighting everything and everyone for as long as I can remember. I don’t know what life is like without a fight. I fought to breathe, to walk, to stand on my own. I fought to be taken seriously and then to be understood.  _

_ I have always been too quick to put my foot down and draw the line. It kept me going when even my mother was preparing my soul for the afterlife.  _

_ I joined the army trough Erskine’s program to prove that I was strong enough to withstand anything they threw at me, to be seen as more than a list of illnesses and defects. In many ways I still feel like that too small person rattling around in a body that feels foreign, alien.  _

_ I’ve learned to keep things close to my chest, protect those closest. Bucky has had my back since I was ten years old and I let him down when he needed me most.  _

_ It’s my fault he fell from the train.  _

~~_ I always fail the people I love the most _ ~~

_ There were rumours during the war, rumours too close to the truth of my --- preferences. And I let them cloud my judgment in protecting my brother and friend. I left him in the hands of Soviets and he was tortured and turned into an echo? shadow? of my brother of who he had once been? I am responsible for all that he’s done since.  _

_ I failed him because I was scared.  _

_ I failed you because I thought I knew better. I thought I knew how you would react and by waiting I could be there to help you through the hard part and we could go on from there. But there was no time, and then Zemo took all decisions from us and I failed you.  _

_ That will be my biggest regret. I hope this letter goes some way to explain my actions. _

_ You, your... friendship is very important to me, and I would be the less for losing it.  _

_ I have to go make some of my mistakes right. I think I’m too used to war, I don’t know how to make decisions that don’t involve fighting.  _

_ I’m so tired, Tony….  _

_ I’m so very sorry, I will always be here if you need me. _

_ Steve _

“You bastard,” Tony whispered, as he set the letter down. 

“Boss, your heart rate is climbing.” 

“S’okay, Friday, I -- I’m good.” He picked up the phone only one number was in the contacts. 

He took a fortifying breath and pressed the number before he could change his mind. Rhodey was right, if he wanted things to get better he was going to have to be responsible or something for once. 

It rang and rang and rang and just when he thought the phone would click over to voicemail the line crackled. 

“Hello?” 

Tony’s breath hitched in his chest. 

“Hey, hi. . . . what is that sound in the background?” he asked. 

“I’ve got a construction show on tv. Not that I’m not happy to hear from you but how did you get this number, I only just got this phone.” Steve said, as if he was trying to pick his words carefully in order to avoid a fight.

“Well your fucked up brain remembered the number to your other phone because you gave me the pair with this number in it.” 

“I did?”

“The phone is not important, I’m --” He let out a giggle, lost for words. “I fucked up, I panicked and I picked a fight because I knew you would retaliate and I used that as an excuse to get away from the house. I’m sorry.” 

Steve exhaled and didn’t speak for a long time, enough that Tony felt the panic rise that Steve hung up.    
“Steve?” 

“Am I really that argumentative?” 

“Fuck, Steve, you’re about to argue over how argumentative you are.” 

“Well, I’m not arguing with you, you’re arguing with me.” 

“Ugggh, you are hopeless. I’m trying to apologize for how I left.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, Tony. I’ve missed you, a lot.” 

“I -- I missed you too. Okay, I don’t like being tongue-tied, so we need to change the subject.” 

“Are you coming home? Well, back here?” 

Tony stared at the ceiling. “Do you even want me there? I’m just going to do that weird hovering thing again and I might freak out.” 

“I know we’re not on good terms, Tony. I won’t push you again like that. It’s my fault for how things ended. You were just so close, I could feel you all around me and I needed you to be real. I was scared you were imaginary.” 

“Steve, did we sleep together to prove to yourself that you were not in fact having a hallucination?” 

“No, I kissed you to make sure you weren’t a hallucination. After that I knew you were real and no matter how angry we’ve been at each other we’ve always been very good in bed.” 

“You underhanded dirty fighter.”

“I play to win, Tony, I don’t know how to be anything else. And I wanted to win you.” 

Tony took a breath. “You won me a long time ago, Steve,” he whispered. 

Steve made a noise, half a gasp, part sob. “I want to see you again.” 

“I have a few more things I need to take care of, but I’ll be by over the weekend. There’s this artisan bakery in the town nearby. I heard they do fantastic things, I’ll pick something up for breakfast Saturday?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you Saturday.” 

***

**TONY STARK SECRETLY MARRIED, TO A MAN!**

_ Pepper Reacts Pg 3  _

Tony stared at the tabloid and tried to stifle the hysterical giggle building in his chest. 

"They also said I have a secret love child in Queens. Are you going to believe everything you read, Pep?" 

"I don't believe it, Tony. You could never keep something like that a secret. You'd be dressed in a rainbow suit and have a 21 gun salute if you could," Pepper said as she sat down behind her desk. "However, this is national, and there are certain parties that might find this information interesting." 

Tony flipped through the article. "They used that photo of you after the Malibu house exploded."

“Not really important which photo they decided to use, Tony, " she said. "It’s the information on page three that might be a bit more pertinent."

"This going to screw with your impending nuptials with Happy?" 

She laughed. "He and I are as used to the paparazzi and the tabloids as you are. Just read page three."

Tony flipped to page three and skimmed the article, then read it again. “What the hell?”

"That’s what I thought, Tony, what is happening-- ."

Tony's phone blipped once and he glanced down, cleared his throat and said, very clearly. "General Ross is a fucking asshole with limited governmental clout that is rapidly dwindling. And his attempts at bugging offices is haphazard at best." 

Tony walked around the room and plucked the four tiny listening devices from their respective hiding places and placed them on the table. "I'm disappointed in you, Ross. I'd say try harder next time, but I honestly think this is your best and I'm just sad for you. Friday, if you would be so kind."

"My pleasure, Boss." The four devices popped and thin filaments of smoke rose from them. Tony swept them into his hand and flushed them down the toilet.

"I have the building swept four times a week, how the hell did we miss those, Tony?" 

"Look, this whole fucking issue is my fault. I jumped the gun with signing those fucking accords, I didn't take into account Ross's avarice and desperation to take control of things. Now we’ve got a demagogue running for office and the Latverians are pushing into neighbouring countries. You know that missile I dodged a week ago, was of Latverian origin. Is Doom still running the place?” 

"There’s been a coup, a few of them in the region, actually. What does that have to do with the construction in Long Island?"

“Fuck! Friday, pull up images of the house please.” 

Friday showed the security system feeds of the grounds, the property was a hive of activity, construction workers and landscapers were crawling all over the place, there were way too many people around. 

“What the hell is happening, Friday, where’s Steve?” 

The only interior camera at the kitchen back entrance swung around and showed a tall man with a scar bisecting his face, partially concealed by a beard and glasses and fifty pounds heavier. 

“Who the hell does he think he’s fooling?” 

“Actually,” Pepper said tilting her head. “He’s even holding himself differently.” 

“Friday, would you care to explain why Steve has decided to go deep cover and renovate the house?” 

“I can’t do that, Boss, you made him priority one for Long Island and he’s sworn me to secrecy.” 

Tony let out a groan. “Where’s he getting the money to pay them? That place is going to eat through whatever funds he thinks he’s got. Ross froze all of his accounts.” 

“He does have a substantial holding in a shell corporation Peggy set up following the war. The instructions were part of her Shield profile and it included a fund that would go to keeping the super soldier serum from seeing the light of day again.” 

“Please tell me you’re not using that.” 

“No, Boss, Steve thinks he’s paying for the renovations, but give me some credit. I’ve routed a smaller account of yours and fixed the details enough he wouldn’t question it.” 

Pepper waved a hand. "Enough of that, does he know about the tabloids? How’s he feeling? He looks good."

Tony watched Steve walk around the kitchen, it wasn’t quite his walk, there was a bit of a limp. The limp was new, was it real? He needed to get there ASAP.

"He hasn’t read any tabloids, the foreman fired the worker who shared the story and it’s being quietly handled through channels. The foreman was one of Fury’s men. Steve Still having the occasional migraine, and the seizure activity has abated entirely, “ Friday said. 

“When was this taken, Friday, is it live?” 

“No, this is from four days ago, the renovations are completed. Save for the basement. I engaged the magnetic locks on all private sections of the house including your father’s offices and anything that required authorized access.”

"What’s this Priority One?” Pepper chimed in. “You've never given anyone that much control over anything, ever, Tony. What changed?"

Tony winced, he knew he was going to have to have this conversation, but he'd been hoping he could either avoid it, or somehow have everything back to normal before he had to admit to anything. But Pepper knew him too well. The only other person who knew him better was Rhodey.

"We can talk about that another time. Somewhere a little less open." 

"Less open than my private office, that you've already swept for and removed all listening devices."

"I've gotten a bit paranoid, lately."

"Lately? Just lately? Not three years ago, when you built forty three suits to try and protect the house, or when you tried to use an evil magic rock to create an AI that would protect the entire world?" 

"Wow, you don't forget anything do you?" 

"It's my job to manage the company and handle the insurance claims post tech malfunction. Your private insurance wouldn't have been able to handle half of this shit. Now, spill it, Tony. You're not distracting me from half of the bullshit from that message he left on my phone." 

“The doctors Fury  _ assured me _ were up to snuff fucked up using BARF and now he believes we’re married and he can’t leave the grounds of the Manor. The problem is that I made it worse by ” cough “ sleeping with him. But it’s all fixed up now.” 

“TONY, YOU DID NOT!” 

“I did. And then I panicked, and did just enough to create a fight as an excuse to run away. So here we are.” 

‘That doesn’t explain everything. Out with it.” 

Tony groaned and slumped in the chair. It took him less than five minutes to update her regarding his stupidity over the last few weeks and Rhodes and Vision coming to his rescue. 

“Before he got hurt he sent me a fedex, I think if I’d read it when I first got it I would have put the phone in the fire. But uh--” he cleared his throat and blushed before resuming “Rhodey and I had a talk and I want to make this work. It’s probably going to backfire and he’s going to kill me when his memories come back, but I think I need to try.” 

Pepper let out a delicate snort. "I think you're making a bigger deal out of that than you need to."

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

"That you're still clueless when it comes to those who care about you.” She sat up. 

“I want to do something for him.” 

“Other than keeping him safe and saving his life.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “I need something in that fucking house that doesn’t remind me of mom and dad. It’s as much for me as for Steve. I hate the idea of adding to the illusion that we’re together, but I just need something. I don’t even know what.”

“Leave it to me, I’ll figure something out.” 

"I can always count on you, can’t I?” 

“Always, Tony. Despite my better judgment, Happy and I care for you, Tony. You don’t know how important you are in our lives. Keep yourself safe, please?”

"God, Pep, I want everything he remembers. I want it so much I can't breathe when I'm around him. He wants it too, right now. I keep telling myself that I'm not lying to him, that everything is real and all he has to do is look. But I am lying. I am letting him believe we're married. I want it to be true. Scratch that. I want  _ something _ with him."

"Oh, Tony. I wish I had an easy answer for you. You have made some phenomenally bad decisions in the past. But I don't think this is one of them. The two of you have been dancing around each other since the day you met. As of now, you just have to hope that when his memory returns he will understand the decisions you made."

"Sure, hide him in the middle of nowhere, keep him from everyone that might be familiar, give him a computer to talk to -- no offense, Friday-" 

"None taken." 

"All with the limited hope that I can somehow fix him. Oh, and go along with the charade that we're married. Because that makes everything else so much easier." 

"When are you going to see him next?" 

"Saturday. I'm taking the suit out as far as a private air strip on Friday and driving the rest of the way Friday night." 

"I'll have something waiting for you by Friday morning. Have Friday send me a post office and I'll have it couriered." 

"You've chosen to ignore my maudlin self pity, I see." 

"Would you have it any other way, Tony?" 

He let out a breath and flashed her a grin. "No. I have to leave. It was good to see you Pep. Give my love to Happy.”

***

Steve heard the engine as he turned the last bend in the trail. The sun was just coming up on his right, filtered through the copse of trees around the house. His watch beeped three notes, the slow cooker was finished, and the coffee pot should be starting. If he and Friday had figured it out that is. They'd tried unsuccessfully a few times that week, though most of that was user error.

The path beneath his feet was well worn with no debris or root systems to crop up and trip him. The cool morning air, let him relax and set a decent pace. Much better than working on a treadmill. He hadn’t been able to go back into the gym in weeks, but the woods behind the property offered better scenery. As he rounded the last copse of trees he saw Tony on the stoop, in wore a pair of dark denims, a t-shirt in a deep navy and his customary sunglasses. Sunlight filtered from the right side of the house, breaking against the corner of the house and the roof over the patio and caught Tony in a brilliant sunbeam. Steve's heart bounced in his chest, sweat beaded and his skin felt hot. He stopped at the edge of the trees and stared at Tony for several seconds before Tony turned around and noticed he was there. 

Later, when he had a few minutes with his hands free, Steve was going to draw that look. The sun against Tony's face, the moment of recognition, Tony removing his sunglasses and staring at Steve with enough heat he could feel it as he walked across the property. Tony's eyes never left him, and Steve's skin tingled. 

He took the stairs two at a time and smiled as Tony looked him up and down. 

"W-where's your shirt?" 

"In the house. Does it bother you?"

Tony let out a delighted laugh and shook his head, trying to clear his throat. "You shouldn't be outside in this weather like that, you're still recovering." 

Steve held up his wrist. "I'm wearing the watch, all my vital signs are stable." 

"Your heart rate is up, Steve." Friday chimed in. 

"So's Tony's, Friday, but that has nothing to do with the run, I think." 

Tony chewed on his lip and Steve could see him clench his fists, even as Tony's face flushed and turned a soft shade of pink. Tony didn't blush well, he had a complexion that could turn nine shades of pink and red and never really match. Steve loved every shade and wanted to paint them all. But there were more pressing matters first. 

Steve leaned forward and just slightly down and placed a chaste kiss on Tony's lips. Tony's free hand spasmed and clutched at Steve's waist. Invitation accepted, Steve stepped closer and let his lips linger against Tony's and slid his fingers through Tony's hair. 

The kiss lasted only a moment, but Steve was more out of breath from that brief touch than the two hours of running. "Two weeks was way too long. I missed you," he said. 

"Mmmm, but you’ve kept busy I see. What the hell, Steve?” 

He felt a stone of worry drop in his gut, did he make the wrong decision in getting the house fixed up? He led Tony inside. The coffee pot was full and the smell suffused the kitchen. The renovations to the kitchen brought it up to date with white cabinetry, and a double fridge concealed by the same design as the cupboards. A large marble island filled the centre of the kitchen, and the new windows let in the morning sunshine. 

“I needed to do something,” Steve said. “I was rambling around here and I needed to make it feel like home again. I don’t know if this was ever our home, but I remembered what you liked and I didn’t want you to hurt while you were here.” 

He took a breath and set his shoulders. “I promise I didn’t touch your parents’ room and the only heavy renovations were in the kitchen and east wing where the roof needed to be replaced and there was a racoon family nesting in the attic.” 

Tony set the boxes on the island and looked around. “You did this for me?” 

“Every time I saw you walk around here you looked haunted, like something was dogging your steps while you were here. I didn’t know if it was my place to make some decisions, but I wanted to do something. So yeah, all for you.” 

“How did you know French provincial would work?” 

“Being married has its perks. You have two favourites, ultra modern and the bare bones of this kitchen had markers of a similar style, so I drew the specs to update it properly.” 

Tony drummed the counter with his fingers and he looked around the room. “Mom always loved the provincial style of things, she said it reminded her of better summers.” He took his time before turning back to face Steve. “Thank you,” he coughed and cleared his throat. “It feels like her again.” 

He pushed the boxes toward Steve. “My gift really doesn’t compete with this.” 

Steve opened the top most box and discovered still warm cinnamon rolls inside, the aromatic smell of cinnamon and sugar thick and delicious overtook his senses. Carefully,he moved the box of sweets off the top and opened the second package. 

It was a slim volume; an album, he noted as he pulled it out of the wrapping. He opened the cover and his breath caught in his throat. Photographs lined the pages, professionally taken, some candids from places he didn’t recognize. They were all of him and Tony. Smiling, laughing in some, carrying on in others. Quiet ones where they were in a room together reading separately. 

Two of them stood out from the rest. They were in white tuxes, with flowers and greenery behind them. He didn’t recognize the location, it was slightly differently than what his memories were trying to feed him and he closed his eyes to hold back the tide. He felt tears slip free and he used the island to steady himself. 

Here it was, proof he was right, tacit proof they were supposed to be together. He pulled out two of the photos of them, in their tuxes; he was unable to take his eyes off of them.

"Hey, Steve, talk to me, you're way too quiet," Tony said. "Ah, fuck, I made you cry. I'm sorry, here let me take that. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it."

Tony took the photos from his unprotesting hands and set them on the counter. 

“Tony," He tried, his voice thick. He sniffled and tried again. “These are wonderful. I'm okay, really I am. This is the most beautiful gift I’ve ever received.” 

His throat hurt with unspent tears, how could Tony say they weren’t together when there was proof in front of them. Why couldn’t he remember that day? “I had --- it's just that I thought it would knock something loose. Not anything big that could screw around with the thing in my head, but maybe something about us." 

"Steve..."

"I know, silly thing to hope for, but I really just want more than the little that's rattling about in my head. The house is lonely enough, I don't even have memories or parts of my personality to keep me company." 

"We can set up an art studio, you used to love to draw?" 

"I have a sketchbook and some pencils, but it's-- it's new, and feels as unfamiliar as the rest."

Tony let out a groan followed by a string of curses that cut off suddenly as he picked up one of the photos. Steve watched Tony’s face, for signs of something positive. Did Tony remember that day fondly, or did their current situation shadow those memories. Were they now warped with sadness and bitter anger? 

Tony took his hands and squeezed them tightly. "The reason the photos are unfamiliar, Steve, is because they’re fake.” 

Steve snorted. “I know you can do a lot of work on a computer these days Tony, but that, you can’t manipulate that.” 

“Yes, I can, and yes Pepper can,” Tony insisted. Steve didn’t want to listen to what Tony had to say, it brushed too close against the deluge of choices and memories he had to fight with to even maintain a scintilla of who he was. “I wanted to give you a gift, something from your actual home in the Brooklyn. Give you something of you back.” 

Tony kept on going and Steve couldn’t stop him. “Bringing you here was a split second decision made when I was faced with few options. I couldn’t bring you to another hospital no matter how secret. You didn’t react well the first time you woke in one. So I needed to outfit this place quickly and quietly. There are a lot of people out there -- well it's not important -- but I couldn't bring a lot of things from the house in New York without calling attention to what I was doing." 

"I kind of figured out something had happened that I’m not supposed to be state-side." He said, deadpan. "I have read all the files, Tony. I have trouble keeping them in my head for very long but if I focus and don’t move too fast with it I can navigate the information without too much backlash." 

Tony grimaced. “Pepper found photos of us, photos we’ve stood for at charity functions. These were taken at a charity auction for Children with Asthma. This one, was for an event on Environmental protections.” Tony smiled as he looked at the photos. “The backgrounds have been changed to make it look like we’re in a garden or whatever Pep believed would make it look more like a wedding. But these were staged photos. I hadn’t expected her or anyone in my employ to go so far as to fake them for us, and I am sorry they’ve hurt you as a result.” 

Steve shook his head. “Don’t believe it.” 

“What do you mean you don’t believe it, that’s the truth.” 

"Look at the way I’m looking at you in charity auction photo. I don’t recall ever looking at a friend like that before. So the backgrounds might be fakes, but the pictures themselves are real. The emotions in them are definitely real.” Steve chewed on his lip for a split section before plunging on. “I know about Afghanistan, I know you've had more trauma than anyone should have to face alone and I think some of that is influencing your decisions. I'm not saying that's inherently bad, but you're dealing with a subset of knowledge that I don't have access to. I need to know some things so I can protect myself, and you, should it become necessary." 

"I'm fine, totally fine. and nothing here is because of Afghanistan. I don’t want these photos and what is happening here to manipulate you. I brought you here to help you heal. I'm doing this to keep you safe, and I can do that." 

"Why are we here, Tony? You must have homes everywhere. Why Long Island?" 

"You're wanted by the US Government and most of the UN because you've broken several major laws and it's unclear whether what you've done constitutes an act of treason. And no, before you ask, I cannot tell you what you did. Suffice it to say you did not murder anyone, you did not actually do anything other than protect someone who you felt needed your protection." 

Steve felt his skin grow cold, his chest constricted as he tried to put the pieces together of what Tony was saying. "But if I've done wrong, Tony, you shouldn't be protecting me. You're putting yourself at risk to do this. Is this the fight we had? Was I trying to protect someone and you were trying to help me and it backfired? Tony, what did I do?" 

There wasn't enough air in the room and pain coruscated along his neck and into his head. He could feel the migraine coming, the shift in his perceptions, the kaleidoscopic fractaling of his vision. No! He couldn't let this take him, there was so much beyond his control he needed this one thing, this one moment where Tony would tell him  _ something _ without having to deal with a seizing husband for his trouble. Despite Tony's protests, Steve stood and ducked into the half bathroom off the kitchen. He grabbed three of the pills from the cabinet, and downed them with a bottle of water. He had the door to the bathroom closed and the lights off, willing the darkness and the meds to do their thing before he was swept away by whatever conduit had opened up in his brain. The deluge of choices assaulted him. People and places he was sure he knew at one time or another. Gunfire, the rolling vibration of tanks overwhelmed him. A swarm of creatures he could only describe as alien poured through a barrier and fell over him. A giant that obliterated the sun; the snap of a finger. 

Steve spun around in his mind until he found Tony again. Locating him there opened him up to all an emotional tide that swept the questions away and he felt the connection settle along with the pain. 

He could hear Tony pacing in the kitchen, knew his breathing would change soon. Steve knew it wouldn't be much longer before Tony's panic would override everything and he'd have to check on Steve. He stepped from the bathroom and ran into Tony. Tony, whose panic had finally won out. Steve pulled Tony tight to his chest and leaned back against the bathroom door and buried his head into Tony's shoulder. Tony, for his part, stiffened for a handful of terrible seconds before relaxing into Steve and holding him in return. 

"Are you okay, is this good? You're still standing, that's a good thing, right?" 

Steve nodded into the crook of Tony's neck. "I'm okay, there's pain, but it's not so bad now." Steve assured him. "Now, are - are you sure I didn't murder anyone." 

"You did not murder anyone. That's not why things are difficult." 

"But I tried to protect someone that others wish to see, what? Killed? That seems a little harsh." 

Tony groaned. "You're not going to be satisfied until I tell you what happened. Or, we spend hours arguing, I still ending up telling you what you and you end up with a major seizure." 

"I think I've headed the seizure off at the pass, but if you'd feel more comfortable we could go upstairs, lay on the bed and you can tell me a few things. Keep the lights off and we can just stay there for a bit." 

"That's the best idea you've had all morning, even better than the coffee." 

Tony guided them up to the bedroom, Steve flopped onto the bed grateful for its softness. Tony sat on the edge of the bed, poised to run at the first opportunity. 

Steve rolled over and took his hand. “You look like you want to run again.” The only light in the room was the soft shades coming through the large windows on either side of the bed. The curtains kept most of the sun out, diffusing the brightness. Steve still felt off-kilter but Tony was near him, his pulse steady under Steve’s fingers. That counted far more than any photo album. 

They didn't speak for several minutes. Gradually, Tony relaxed and stretched out on the bed. Only the sound of their breathing filled the room. Tony's was a staccato of short sharp inhales, Steve's were more even, something he'd been forced to focus on when the pain became too much. Tony's arms were tight against his sides as if he dared not push beyond an imaginary boundary. Steve clung to Tony’s hand, allowing himself this. Tony was willing to meet him here, Steve wasn’t going to push for more than he could give. 

"Thank you for the album," he said. 

"Don’t thank me for that yet, I have to go through it and see what other photos they manipulated. I’ll find the originals for us, you should have something real even if it’s not what you want." 

"Tony, I can't even tell which photo is from our wedding. I hoped, looking at the pictures might jog something loose, something more than just the vague certainty that we are together." Steve sighed and slid his arms tighter around Tony, pulling him closer against him. 

Tony's breath hitched and he sat up suddenly. "I can't, can't do this." He sounded wretched, broken. 

Cold settled in Steve's gut and he tried not to shake on the bed as Tony started pacing the room. "I love you, Steve, I-- oh gods, I love you so much. But I’ve been here for less than an hour and in that time I’ve tried to tell you that we’re not married. Hell, I have told you the photos are fake, they’re charity auction photos. They’re not real, we have never been married. We’ve never kissed, never slept together. I’ve never had anything with you.”

"Tony,-” 

"No, I lied, Steve. When you were first brought here, Fury told me you believed we were married. He told me that it would be easier to go along with it. I’m not good at playing along with things and it was kind of easy at first only because I was still angry as fuck at you for Siberia. But then we slept together and I -- I knew I had fucked up.

“We are not married. We didn't even get close to it. You have never told me how you felt, and I am so much of a coward I couldn't bring myself to even say it. I wanted to, god damnit, I wanted this to be our lives. I fucking wished I could say something that would come across as sincere. But I've spent the last twenty some years protecting myself from being hurt that I don't know how to even sound sincere anymore. But we didn't get married, the closest we've ever been until three weeks ago was friends. I was content with being your best friend. I thought I was. Until you kissed me and well-- I am never going to be the same after that. But I let it continue, I let myself be okay with something that I knew was manipulating the situation. Had I not brought you here and used my tech to try and fix you, you wouldn’t be in this mess. I'm going to find a way to get your memories back, but you're going to hate me when you remember everything. How can you trust me when I've broken your trust by pretending and manipulating you like this?" 

Steve stared at Tony, his world shattering between them and the klaxon ring of panic settling in the back of his brain. He shook his head as the same barrage of choices and memories flooded his brain. Focusing on Tony fixed this so easily, as if the connection between his emotions found true north in middle of the maelstrom 

No, this wasn't happening. This wasn't going to happen. He had so little left to fight for and each time he did this he forgot they weren’t married. In the middle of hurricane he could see all of the truths Tony was saying, he could see where it would take him if he pulled back from Tony now. That’s what he should do, what the old Steve would do, pull back keep safe. Well, to hell with what the old him would think of this. The old him never had the fucking courage to tell this man how he felt. The other him hurt Tony enough that Tony was ready to run and fast before Steve could hurt him again. He knew he couldn’t accept the alluring safety of the false memories. He’d have to battle the storm while showing Tony he could still be strong.

"Why did you set this place up, Tony?"

"You've always hated doctors and hospitals. Half the time when you were awake you were fighting them, or your anxiety was so pronounced we couldn't be sure which treatments were working. Ross had found us and I knew they were going to drag you to another hospital inside a bunker and I had to lose Ross because he was following me, so I couldn’t stick around. But, this place was close, and I trusted the security system." 

"So you did this to protect me, and give me a chance at recovery,” Steve questioned. “You took me here, when you have access to anything you want at your fingertips, and you decided that my safety and comfort was more important than yours? This house is a haunt of memories for you.

“I’m sitting here with barely a handhold on who and what I am, and you’ve immersed yourself in the memories of the worst time in your life? At any given time, even with the monitoring off, how far away are we from medical staff?"

"I purchased the other four houses nearby. Two I’d purchased a few years ago when they started complaining about the state of the house.” The others I bought just before we landed here. They're staffed 24/7 and no more than forty-five minutes via ATV, the closest is ten minutes. And before you call that point in my life the worst, there have been some recent contenders." 

"And I'm wanted by the US Government for treason, and one of those contenders is directly related to this place." 

"Ross can't make those accusations stick, you were protecting someone who had been framed for crimes he didn’t commit, using the actions he did commit under duress as proof. Someone who had been tortured into committing terrible acts of --- murder and espionage among others." 

"And that's when you and I disagreed."

"I was losing the man I loved to an old flame and the old flame committed atrocities I wasn't able to handle when I found out about them. It wasn't a good scene and your watch is beeping which means this is going beyond what you can handle right now." 

Steve shook his head. "This is important, Tony." 

"What's  _ important _ is making sure we don't give you permanent brain damage while you insist on pushing beyond what your memory can withstand. You might wake up and forget all of this. And before you say no, you won't, that’s happened,  _ twenty minutes ago _ . What makes this time any different?" 

"It's different, because --” 

He inhaled through his teeth and focused his attention on Tony until everything else settled as background noise.

“I don’t know how to explain this, it’s like I’m inside a massive storm in my head. I can see so many things, if I reach out and touch them I get all of these memories with them. Sometimes, okay most of the time it’s too much and I can’t stop it from getting worse. It’s like there are too many images to pick through, too many choices. But not with you. With you, Tony, It’s always the same. There is only one choice, to be with you. I still love you. Whether you believe we aren’t married or not. I’m believe in my soul we are. I know we are.”

Tony started pacing again, hands twitching as if he was already forming arguments in his head. Arguments that were pointless, likely painful, and held all of his insecurities wrapped up in rationalized packages. Steve needed to stop this before Tony could convince the two of them to go back to pining from afar. 

“I know I’m not making sense. I don't want you to leave. I don't want the doctors to come here. I want you to stay; I need you to stay. You've gone above and beyond what anyone has any right to expect. You've done everything you can to help me and get me back on my feet. Believing that when that happens I’ll go back to hating you.

“No matter what you may think of my memories, I can tell you right now, I have never hated you. I love you. I will continue to love you. We hurt each other, I'm sure of that. I'm sure I've done my fair share of not understanding and believing I'm right. Whatever has happened in our past that has prevented this from happening, maybe we can put it aside now. I know I'm asking a lot from you. I'm asking you to put aside things I can't remember and as such don't affect me in the way they do you. But I want this to be how we go forward. If we're not married now, I want to be. I want to be with you, and those pictures downstairs, and this house and all the trust you've put in me with Friday is enough to tell me that you want that as well." 

"How do I know i'm not manipulating this? How can I be sure?" 

"Tony, have I ever done anything in my life that someone made me do? Even if I can't remember things I'm still functionally the same person. I swear I will fight God himself if it means we can be together." 

Tony stilled. Stopped pacing and even stopped breathing for a few seconds as he stared at Steve. "That is the most  _ you _ thing you've said since this whole thing began." 

"Is that a yes?"

Tony nodded hesitantly, afraid to acknowledge what he truly wanted out in the open. Steve saw his eyes well up and before Tony could hide the tears behind bluster and sarcasm, Steve took hold of Tony's hand and pulled him down onto the bed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene has an extra warning for mentions of torture and kidnapping and homophobia

The message came through encrypted channels. Tony had been out of the limelight for several months having been forced out of active duty with Ross because of his hamfisted control issues, and general attitude of worst kid on the playground, ever. Tony and Steve had been working through what Tony now had to admit was PTSD of an absolutely terrifying breadth. His therapist would be ecstatic for such a realization. He really shouldn't be away from the house, not just for his own peace of mind but, Steve's as well. 

The problem was the message source.

"I have to say I wasn't expecting the King of Wakanda to want to meet for coffee," Tony said as he sat at the table. The cafe was a small, local start up, a new one a few blocks from the new Wakandan Outreach Centre in Oakland. Several startups had sprung up as a direct result of the outreach centre and its work with community involvement. Tony was impressed.

"Hello Tony," T'Challa said. "I had hoped we could have met earlier but exigent circumstances have made such meetings impossible until now." 

"I've been keeping up with the news, you've had a busy year between taking the mainstage at the UN summit, and your outreach work in how many countries now, fifteen?" 

"Twenty as of this morning, with plans and negotiations for an additional twenty within the next year." 

Tony whistled. "That is massively impressive, but I doubt this conversation has anything to do with your accomplishments." 

T'Challa shook his head and tapped a small flat coin on the table. The relative noise in the busy cafe muffled instantly, and Tony looked down at his now dead phone. "T'Challa, I want to trust you, buddy, but you've killed my phone and I have to say I'm not really feeling all that safe. I know we didn't have the best of meetings, but I figured this wasn't the likely result." 

"That's to keep prying ears away from us, Tony. You have very persistent followers, my sister has created a simple device that makes their job that much harder." 

"Your sister," Tony said, picking up the coin. "Someday I would like to meet her." 

"Perhaps sooner than someday."

"As intriguing as that possibility is, T'Challa, what are you driving at? You have an agenda, and I have to say I'm curious." 

"A mutual friend of ours has gone missing." 

"Oh?"

"He's been missing for a while, and again, exigent circumstances, we didn't have the ability to search for him in a timely manner. It has taken us a while to put the pieces together, but my sister is fairly certain she's located him." 

"What does that have to do with me?"

"Tell me, Tony, how is Long Island these days?" 

Tony lost all the mirth he'd been feeling up to that point and dropped the coin on the table. "I found a self-help guru who's been helping me with my PTSD, I've been told it's legendary." 

"I'm not here to interfere, Tony, and I'm not here to threaten."

"Funny, that, you're not helping yourself with how this conversation is going." 

A waitress dropped two cups of coffee on the table and sat down. "Honestly, is this how you talk to your friends? No wonder you don't have any." She turned and stuck her hand out to Tony. "I'm Shuri, and my brother likes to remind me that he has diplomatic experience, though he can't seem to have a normal conversation without nearly fucking it up." 

"Shuri!" 

"No, brother, you are about to really screw this up. I'm sorry, Tony, I'm the only one who knows about Long Island. We haven't told anyone else and your encryptions are still in place. In fact I've added a few of my own on the outskirts to keep them busy should they even look." 

"You did?"

"I did, and we wouldn't be here if we didn't have to be. After we realized that our friend had been missing, and tracked his last known signal, we picked up that he'd been found by Fury. That would have been the end of it, but things didn't add up. I've been looking into Steve's regenerative capabilities, he was more than happy to give us a sample in order to help with Mr. Barnes. When he didn't show up again we got worried. With his regeneration he should have been back in contact with us by now. 

“I know there have been problems in the past, but given what I've pieced together, I believe you are the one person he would trust most and would know how to help him. Has something happened to him, Tony? I can't say that I'm well acquainted with him, but he's a good man, and I would hate to see him hurting if there is something I can do." 

"I like you," Tony said quietly. It was good that Steve could receive this much concern after just a few meetings. He had that knack about him. He wanted to trust them, but their knowledge of where Steve was located, the tracking, it left him worried.

"See, you ruined it brother. Never lead with the 'I've been secretly spying on you', bury that, please." 

T'Challa threw up his hands. "I wasn't spying, and I didn't lead with it. I admit it was perhaps tactless to mention it as I did, but I thought we should have no secrets at the beginning of things." 

"I'm still a little unnerved that you figured things out. I have everything routed through enough encryption and shell companies that Ross would get stuck in the red tape for months if he started to pull strings." 

“I wasn't paying attention to large purchases. I was looking for medical supply purchases, equipment, which spiked in several locations. And while you don't exactly have a no fly zone over several estates in Long Island, military planes find themselves routed just along the edge of it enough that it forms a pattern when you're looking for it. 

Then I started paying attention to your absences and compared them to sightings." 

"Please come work for me. What do I have to do to get you work for SI in R&D. We'll make things. You can show me stuff." 

"Mr. Stark, why would I work in a lab that is at least forty years behind what I'm working with now?"

"Good question, we can hash out the details later." He shook his head, clearing the new tech/new genius friend excitement that was threatening to derail the entire conversation. "I believe you have our mutual friends' best interest at heart, but I'm not comfortable letting anyone have the details outside of those absolutely necessary. Pepper and Happy don't even know where he's located in case they can be compromised."

"Do you think General Ross is that much of a threat to his safety?"

"Ross wants a scapegoat. Ross wants someone he can skewer and show exactly how hard they will apply the Sokovia Accords to if found guilty of treason. He is still pissed about Steve breaking the others out, and he wants his head on a platter so he can serve it up. It doesn't help that with the current political climate and Trump being what he is that things are now openly and terrifyingly worse. There is no oversight for how this government applies the accords. Right now Trump and Pence have their hands full with mutants and the shitstorm that Magneto can bring them, but it's not going to take them long to want to drag all supers with the same net."

T'Challa sat up straight in his chair and adjusted his jacket. "That does make things more difficult. Would you feel comfortable with moving him to Wakanda, the both of you?"

Tony felt the blood leave his face and he shook his head. "No, that wouldn't be a good idea."

"You would come as well, Mr. Stark." Shuri repeated. "There would be no drop in his care, and you could monitor everything yourself, as well as have access to my lab."

"It's not your lab, and your offer is fantastic. Normally I'd be a kid at Christmas. But Steve is, well, his memory is fried. Whatever tech Ross had access to is buried so deep around the nerves in Steve's brain any time he tries to access long term memories or even more recent events he risks seizures and worse. And there was a fuck up at the Manor and now he’s tied to the security system. He can’t leave the grounds. 

“He is finally two weeks free of seizure activity and we're only just looking at trying to bridge more memories. If there's any stress or too much stimulation it could have serious repercussions."

Shuri pulled out the thinnest tablet Tony had ever seen. Vibranium, it had to be. "Do you have his medical files with you?" 

"Had them on my phone, but your dampening field is creating some havoc with that." 

"May I see it?" 

"Yes, sure," Tony said as he handed her the phone. 

She adjusted something on the tablet and his phone found a signal. 

Friday chimed in immediately. "Boss, do you need back up?" 

"Everything is cool, Friday. No need to bring the cavalry. Give Shuri access to Mr. Liberty's medical files. Authorization E-199999."

The transfer completed with a beep and Shuri looked over the files, chewing her bottom lip. "Yes, I see what you're dealing with, this is going to take some time. I have to get back to my lab and create a prototype that can remove the bullet without damaging the surrounding tissue." She looked up at Tony with a grin. "I should be ready to test things in two weeks." 

Tony's heart picked up speed and hammered in his chest. Did she really have the ability to fix Steve that quickly? He wanted Steve to have his memories back, to be able to choose Tony with all of his memories intact and not just what BARF and Steve's brain created out of a shoestring plot. He couldn't think about the alternative, of Steve going back to the way he was before, the way they were before, the arguing and the never seeing eye to eye again. They still argued now but he never doubted Steve's intention, never doubted his feelings for Tony. It helped that Steve was a tactile partner. 

Maybe Tony had nothing to worry about, now that their feelings were out in the open, Steve wouldn't change how he felt and would want to continue what they had. In all his life Tony had never been that lucky with anything, ever. No matter the outcome, he needed to make sure Steve had every option available to him. 

"Two weeks is great, I'll make sure I have everything in order," Tony said, standing. "If that's everything, I'm sure you have a very busy schedule, I'll be in touch." 

"Tony, before you go, there is one other person who would like to speak with you. If you're okay with it that is." T'Challa said softly. 

"Who would that be?" 

"Mr. Barnes is also concerned for your mutual friend's health, and he did not wish to surprise you or presume that you would be able to meet with him. If you are agreeable to a meeting I can set one up here tomorrow. The same anonymity and safety protocols will be in place so you needn't worry about General Ross or any rogue agencies." 

He could never have nice things. 

“Fine.”

***

Steve heard the engine of Tony's car as it came up the long drive. Another week of talks and functions and not being there with Steve was over and done with and Steve felt the strain of the last few days bleed off as Tony parked in front of the barn. Steve met him by the car and didn't give Tony a chance to quip or make some snarky comment before he gently tugged Tony closer for a kiss. He sighed and felt his shoulders relax, loosen and let go of the tightness he'd been carrying since Tony had left a week earlier. Tony still believed they weren't married, they'd never had a ceremony, but everything in Steve knew without a doubt they were bonded in some way that defied explanation. It didn't need to have the approval of the state or the church, it was enough that he knew when they kissed, Tony's heart raced as wildly as his own. 

The bedroom was too far away, the barn was close enough privacy for him. Tony looked surprised, but he clued in fast and the two of them tossed clothing out of their way as they ducked into the shadowy barn. Enough clothes out of the way, Steve pressed Tony against the barn door and kissed him again, held him tight, chest to chest as he slipped his hands down and squeezed Tony's ass. 

"Not to put a spanner in the works," Tony said, giggling and kissing Steve back. 'But this plan lacks something essential." 

Steve grinned. "Back pocket." 

Tony dug into Steve’s back pocket, taking the opportunity to squeeze Steve's ass in the process. He pulled out the small container and looked at Steve with a mixture of incredulity and pride. "Sir, have you been planning to deflower me in this barn?" 

"I've been planning on doing a lot of things with you, Tony," he said, his voice thick. 

Tony let out a noise in the back of his throat, and pushed Steve's pants down, freeing the last impediment to their fun. 

Steve loved touching Tony. He ran his hands over Tony's chest and down along his hips, teasing light touches along his groin. Never so much as brushing his fingers along Tony's cock, only teasing close enough to feel the heat and hear Tony's breath catch. He knew how impatient his husband was when it came to fun and personal gratification. Tony was easy to egg on, turning a tease into action with an impatient noise and deep, hungry kisses. 

Steve slid to his knees onto the rough floor of the barn digging in and his jeans spread tight, trapping his legs. Steve looked up at Tony through his lashes and leaned in to swirl his tongue around the tip of Tony's cock, savouring the look on Tony's face as he trembled above him. Tony never took his eyes off Steve and leaned forward, sliding his mouth along Tony's shaft, flicking his tongue, tormenting Tony with incomplete touches. He slid his tongue back to the head of Tony's cock and wrapped his lips around the bulb and flicking his tongue along the slit. He knew Tony wasn't going to let him keep it up for long. Tony was impatient at the best of times and Steve preferred drawing things out. Lingering, lavishing attention around the glands before sliding deeper and swallowing around Tony's bulk. 

Tony was already cursing up a storm and leaning against the car. He was leaking precome steadily and he was practically shaking as he tried not to thrust into Steve's mouth. Steve's own desire wasn't that far behind. His cock throbbed painfully and he clenched his fists to keep from jerking off to release some of the tension. 

Seconds, a minute at most, passed before Tony was shoving the lube into Steve's hand. "Steve, Stevestevestevesteve," he groaned and his hand went to Steve's hair tugging at him. 

Steve sat back and slipped off Tony's cock with a lewd popping sound. "Yes?" he asked, his voice hoarse. 

Tony let out a groan and panted for breath against the car. 

"Like me on my knees, Tony?" 

"Jesus fuck me, yes." Tony whispered. "But I uh, I need-hnnng, I need you to get to work with that lube." 

"You want to be a little more comfortable in the car?" Steve asked, stumbling to his feet as he rid himself of the jeans. 

"And ruin the leather? No, here is fine." Tony snarked. 

Steve grinned, spun Tony around and kissed the back of his neck as he rubbed his cock against the cleft of Tony's ass. Tony whined and rubbed against him sending sparks off along Steve's nerves. He was going to be gentler than he had been the last time. The last time they fucked, Steve had gone overboard. Lost amid a torrent of feelings, wants and terror, Steve had followed the overwhelming urge to show Tony how much he needed him and how lost he was at the thought of Tony being gone. 

Steve shivered, sweat beading on his skin as he covered his fingers in lube and slipped them along Tony's ass. Tony was still Tony and impatient to get to the good stuff as he called it and leaned back into Steve's fingers and cock until Steve's index finger slipped beyond the entrance. Tony's right hand reached behind and grabbed at Steve's cock, distracting him as he tried to focus on opening Tony up for what was come next. 

Steve knew he could last a while and his refractory period was minutes at most but that didn't mean he wanted to kick that part off too early. His eyes were drifting closed of their own volition and he wanted to get lost in the sensation of Tony's dexterous fingers clumsily trying to jerk him off as he begged for Steve to fuck him. 

Tony's voice grew louder and more insistent the more he begged, demanded that Steve hurry up. Steve let out a soft groan and pushed Tony over the hood of the car, kicking his legs apart to give himself a better angle. Tony yelped, laughed, and shuddered against the still warm top of the vehicle. Still, Tony tried to reach back and grab onto Steve's cock. If Steve wasn't so close, if he hadn't resorted to jerking off to thoughts of Tony every morning and night for the last seven days, he would be happy to have Tony all touchy feely. As it was he was hard press -- ha-- not to just come at the feel of Tony squirming and begging underneath him. It was all he could do to concentrate as he opened Tony up further. 

By the time he got to three fingers, patience lost the battle and Steve stepped back, slathered his cock in lube, enjoying the view of Tony laid open and trembling on the hood of his expensive car. Once slick, he pressed forward and pushed inside of Tony, groaning as Tony's body opened for him. Tony cursed and shook underneath him, rocking his hips and trying to push back into Steve. 

The angle didn't help Tony at all. Nor did Steve laying over Tony, kissing along his neck as he slid deep. Once settled--still gasping and covered in sweat--Steve pressed soft, open mouthed kissed along Tony's shoulders. Grabbing Tony’s hips, Steve jerked upward, setting the pace for their lovemaking as he whispered his feelings into Tony's shoulder and neck, gasping for breath as he let himself savor the sensations crowding near the base of his spine. 

He kept one hand on Tony's hip and wrapped an arm around his torso, splaying his hand across Tony's chest, using the texture shift of Tony's scars to guide him to Tony's heart. Steve pressed his forehead against Tony's shoulder, clinging. Steve felt like he was coming apart at the seams, shattering with each beat of his heart. Tony was here, with him. He was beneath Steve, and he was cursing the air blue as he rode Steve's cock. Tony's heart pounded against his hand bright and alive. He needed this, he needed it every day. He needed Tony, just Tony. 

His muscles tightened and he let out a string of curses as he grabbed the frame of the car, riding the wave of pleasure as he released. Tony's ass squeezed around him and he felt Tony's hands reach behind and dig his fingers into Steve's hips, holding Steve there while he rocked once, twice more, then shuddered around Steve in a way that forced the air from Steve's lungs and the last bit of strength from his legs as he collapsed on the dusty barn floor. 

"Gotta say, this is more than the welcome I expected," Tony laughed. "Figured I'd be answering a lot of questions considering my exit two days ago." 

"You have a business to run, and I figure Ross has you on a short leash," Steve said. 

Tony shifted in his arms until they were facing each other, and the look on his face made Steve's heart ache. There was something he wasn't telling Steve, something he wanted to tell him but he held back. 

"Ross doesn’t have me on any leash, I’m too much of a liability," Tony whispered. "I'm barely keeping it together most days. I make suits and weapons to keep from falling back into the pit. I save a few people here and there, but when I follow the string back, I'm still the reason they're in trouble in the first place." 

"Bullshit." Steve sat up, forcing Tony to adjust in his lap. Before Tony could pull away to put clothes between them and the emotional tenor of their conversation, Steve wrapped his arms around Tony's waist. "Keep pulling a string long enough and twist it just right, and you can blame yourself for everything. But you're forgetting a few things here, Tony. You can only control yourself. Your reactions, your decisions, what you need to do to help you sleep and look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. We can only ever make the best decision with the information we have at the time. Therefore, you cannot control other people or their decisions." 

"Anyway,” he said changing the subject. “I met with some friends of yours, well, ours: T’Challa, and his sister Shuri. She’s a genius. Even smarter than I am." 

Steve’s eyes widened.

“I know, I’m in awe, she’s amazing, and I want her to work for me, hell, I want to work for her. Not important, they were worried about you and it didn’t take them long to figure out where you were.” 

“Do we have to leave? You don’t look scared. Doesn’t this mean this place is dangerous?” 

Tony waved it away. “She’s added to our security, it’s totally fine. And even better, she’s taken a look at your injuries and thinks she’ll have a solution to remove the tracker in a couple of weeks.” Tony bounced a little, still on Steve’s lap, but Steve wasn’t getting excited. “What? Why aren’t you happy? You should be happy -.” 

“I mean, yeah it’s probably a good thing I get the bullet out but… I don’t have any frame of reference for how things were before, I like what we’ve got right now. I thought we’d have more time to just be together, and be us.” 

“We will, things will be fine. You’ll see. Once you’re better.” 

‘Tony, what if things get bad, if I don’t remember this, what if I’m awful to you.? What if I lose all of the memories I have, even the fake ones? I don’t want to go back to that.” Steve took a shuddering breath, shifted closer to Tony on the floor. “Sometimes I think my ghosts are trying to crowd in on me all at once. Sometimes, sometimes I think that this is my penance, stuck in limbo without too many memories, but no access to what made me, me. And here you are, taking too much on. You seem driven by the need to fix me." 

"I don’t know any other way to be, Steve. I fix things, it’s what I’m good at. When I don’t fix things I get stuck in my head and it’s not a fun place to be." Tony hesitated. “And I don’t know if your feelings will remain without the tracker there, and I’m scared that I’m setting myself up for heartbreak.” 

“Tony -- “ 

"Hey, so, you know what? Yeah, so I'm just going to say this because what have I got to lose? I’m scared, Steve. I'm absolutely petrified that I'm going to wake up one morning to see that you've remembered everything and that you're going to wish I'd left you in the ocean, or with the doctors, or anyone but me. That what happened between us before was too much to fix, and I had no right to bring you here in the middle of nowhere and hide everything from you." Tony fidgeted and this time Steve couldn't prevent him from getting up and grabbing his clothes. 

Steve leaned back on his hands. "You haven't hidden anything from me, I have read everything there is about the two of us. I’ve read my files, I know everything. I can’t think about it or things get crowded. I can’t focus on Sam or Natasha without feeling like something is plugged into my head and trying to fill it up. It doesn’t happen with you, Tony. I don’t know why but I can reconcile all of the things I know about you. I think it has to do with how much I love I you.

“I feel calm when I look at you. The questions cease, the constant worrying about who I am and who I'm meant to be just still. I feel like out of all the chaos you're the one constant and you will always have my back." Steve felt his throat constrict and he swallowed thickly. "And I can't escape the terrible feeling that I didn't always have yours. I can't tell you what the future will hold. But I will make you a promise right now. Should my memories return, no matter what their contents are, this is what I want for us, and I will do everything in my power to make it work." 

Steve's eyes stung and he blinked rapidly to push away the tears. Silence hung between them and Steve couldn't find a sarcastic comment that wouldn't totally ruin the sentiments he just shared. 

"Well, as proposals go, that doesn't suck. Uhhh, I, uh . . . I got nothing. I'm speechless. How do you do that?" 

"How do I do what? Make proposals that don't suck?" 

"No, make me speechless? No one else can do that." 

"It's a gift." Steve shrugged and climbed to his feet, and pulled on his jeans. "So, will you stay? I just want you to have a place to come home to" 

"Yeah, I think I can do that." 

***

"Why did you want to talk to me?"

"Call me paranoid, but I wanted to make sure you're you and not still hooked on that former Soviet pain juice. Also you're as stubborn as Steve, I didn't think you'd accept a blanket 'no, you can't see him' and be okay with that."

"Okay, fair enough," Bucky said softly. "Still didn't think you'd want to meet me in person. Given our last meeting."

"We're not going to discuss that."

"Seems a pretty big elephant to leave in the room there, Tony."

"Well, sorry, sweetheart, but thems the breaks. You can't apologize for what happened. Bu-Buh no buts. I don't mean that I don't forgive you, I mean that you literally cannot apologize for 70 years of torture and brainwashing that culminated in Hydra using you as a weapon in order to create their own personal line of Ken doll Super Soldiers. 

Still not sure how you managed to fuck up and give Zemo a full on screen play by play of the whole thing. Seems a little lax in Hydra's case."

"Even under their control I could exercise some push. I couldn't stop what they wanted me to do. I couldn't ignore their orders, but I could bend them. Dark road in the middle of nowhere satisfied their rules. I had hoped the footage would have come out in some other scandal, something that would have made a difference. After that point, I tried to bend them more, push against what they were doing. The only time I could ever stop it, was when children were involved. 

“Sure the torture and the shit I went through after was worse, but I never killed a kid." 

"Jesus Christ, Barnes." Tony cleared his throat. "You're a lot better at talking about this that I would have expected." 

"Shuri," Bucky said, nodding. "She was able to scrub the conditioning and help me work through a good portion of what happened. Steve was supposed to stick around, in fact he promised that he'd not go off on any stupidly reckless missions without backup before I was able to help." 

Tony snorted. "Does it really surprise you that he wouldn't wait and instead go off half cocked." 

"No, the number of times I had to rescue him from some back alley brawl, or fight in a parking lot because he couldn't just stay quiet for five God damn minutes is too many to count. He is relentless." 

"Good to know this wasn't a thing that started when he came out of the ice." 

"No, no, Steve has always been a fighter. Always been stubborn." Bucky said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "He’s been doing this all his life, including rescuing people 200 miles behind enemy lines when he should have been home, state side." 

"He did that for you, though, considering what he did in Washington a few years ago, and other.. places, that's not so surprising. The rest was just the media playing him up as some icon." 

"No, that was all him. Steve has never been easy to live with. He has a stubborn streak that has kept him alive when everything has been trying to kill him. So what's he fighting now?"

"Ross has a developed some kind of tagging projectile that has lodged in base of his skull. Docs believe that his regenerative capabilities went into overdrive because of hypothermic conditions and he healed around the tag. It's now wrapped inside a nerve cluster that is interacting with his long term memory. Nothing else seems to be affected by it, muscle memory, task memory, even short term is okay. Now at least. His short-term took a while to clear and that was through scrubbing all personal evidence from current events. 

“At first when he woke up he couldn't remember the year and the disconnect between what he saw and what he remembered was causing too much stress." 

"So I could really fuck him up. Assuming he was able to remember me at all." 

"That's our working theory. I'm not actually sure. He couldn't handle being around Fury. Before I became involved there was some effort to try and help him remember with others but his reaction to Romanov was apparently incredibly painful." 

"But you're okay?" Bucky nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense." 

"Are you being sarcastic, Barnes?" 

"It's Bucky, and no, I'm serious. The way he responds to you makes sense. You’re his type and even the brief conversations we had before this whole mess went pear shaped he was absolutely in your corner. He kept saying you'd understand, that you were trying to save everyone and once you saw what Ross was really going after you'd understand." 

"He didn't count on me finding out about the parent thing. He was just going to leave that out." 

"No, once we had taken Zemo off the table, he was going to see you and make sure that you were okay and then have the worst conversation ever. I told him it should be me who told you and, well, he even predicted that would happen. He wasn't trying to keep it from you. He knew for maybe three days." 

Tony closed his eyes, god damn that man. Even when they were fighting he was doing it for a good reason. What the ever loving fuck, Rogers. 

"S- uh, So. . . fuck." Tony cleared his throat and tried to start over but Bucky intervened. 

"I had assumed you two were dating." 

"Nope, no, Steve never indicated he was anything other than straight." 

Bucky let out a full laugh. Almost guffaw, complete with snort. "What? Did the picture of Peggy in the watch actually work? That was Peg's idea. Yes, they liked each other, and I'm sure she showed him some fantastic ropes. But she was as much his beard and he was hers." 

Tony's face must have registered some of the disbelief he felt because Bucky held up his hands and continued. 

"Really, the three of us like all kinds. Peggy was seeing one of the codebreakers in Bletchley and Steve gave her enough cover to continue that relationship." 

"Did you and Steve ever...." 

"No, no, I love Steve, he's my family, but that's it, he's my family. He's my brother. Gabe and I were together briefly, but never Steve and I." 

"What about Arnie?" 

"Arnie? I don't know an Arnie." 

"When I asked Steve if he'd ever been with anyone else, he mentioned, Peggy, but then mentioned an Arnie Roth." 

Bucky shook his head. "No, I don't recognize the name. Steve and I weren't together every second and maybe he met him before he shipped out himself. Wouldn't be in any of the records. Peggy would have seen to keeping his record smudge free. Let's face it, the US finding out that their shining war hero was nothing but a dirty fag would have rocked the country." 

Tony winced.

"They called him that enough before the serum, Tony. They called the both of us that and much fucking worse. You've dealt with it too, I'm sure." 

"I've never been out. I had parties, and dates, and very discrete partners, but dad was very harsh. Until very recently I've never had anything serious." 

"Recently?" 

Tony rubbed his hands through his hair. "Bucky, he thinks we're married," Tony whispered slightly hysterical. "I've told him that we're not, I've told him the truth and instead of believing me he thinks I'm protecting him from his memories. Worse yet, he things we've been married for four years now and that last year's -- issues-- are now a cobbled together mess of him convinced he tried to kill me because we had an argument."

"And this is because of that tech that got lodged in his head?"

"We're not sure, that's the best information we got and it fits with what is happening to him. I don't know why he's made the leap that we're married."

Tony didn't like the look of Bucky's face. There was something he wasn't telling Tony. 

"Out with it, Barnes. You know something you're not telling me."

"No, I don't, not really," Bucky said. "I don't know why he would make the leap from his feelings for you to them being reciprocated. If anything the bit of information I do know would have made him clam up even faster if he remembered even an inkling of it." 

"Tell me."

"Your dad found out Steve was gay."

"Please don't tell me they had a thing. I've spent too much of my life competing against him in one way or another."

"Oh fuck no, Tony. Your dad was pretty typical for his time. He assumed we were somehow involved. Steve never told me what happened between the two of them and what I know is supposition and the Russians doing everything they could to break me. I do not know what is true or what they embellished. And I'm definitely not the person that you'd consider as neutral when it comes to your dad."

The day just kept getting weirder. He can't say he was surprised but the ridiculousness of the last year was getting out of hand.

"Just tell me what you think happened, I'll have Friday run a comparative."

"I don't think he did anything, I think he threatened to ruin me. I think your father found out that the best way to get Steve to do something was to threaten family. I think when I fell, Steve blamed himself for more than just not going to find me, but that he let the fear of your dad threatening him with something prevent him from finding me. Steve was distracted on our last mission. He and Howard were barely talking and I think he wanted Steve to bow out of the program after we caught Zola. Let real heroes take it from there.” 

"How would that make Steve do anything? Steve is the most stubborn person I know and if anyone threatened him with something like that he'd double down on it and kick your ass in the process."

"The Russians told me that they'd been tipped off, saying someone really didn't want me to be found by the allies.” 

Tony sat back in his chair and stared at Bucky, horror dawning. “My father. . . kept immaculate notes. Despite what some have told me about him being scattered in his youth and as much a playboy as scientist, he wrote everything down,” Tony offered. “I found it odd that several of his private journals were kept with his old field notes, especially those from the war and overseas. Everything that man did he did for a reason. 

“Was there a base or private bunker you and the Howling commandos had in the war?” 

“We worked out of some bunker space near Bletchley mostly. Steve did say that before he joined the USO he’d been in a medical facility for a time.” Bucky seemed to be chewing on something; his eyes flickered as if he was trying to recall things from deep within his subconscious. A wince crossed his face but cleared before Tony could comment. “Sometimes my memories from the war feel like they’re from someone else, and I forget they’re mine. But Steve wrote several times to me during the war, the last one I got sounded weird. He wasn’t telling me something. I thought he was keeping his health away from me, he did that when he didn’t want to worry me, or ma. It was even easier for him to lie to me thousands of miles away when I couldn’t send my sister over with soup and enough attitude to bully him back to health.

But this was different, he said he was okay, there’d been an issue but it’d been resolved and if I needed to send him anything to send it via Veterans hospital in Long Island.” 

“You mean the one in Northport?” 

“No, this had a different address, I can’t remember now, but it felt weird. He didn’t tell me he’d gotten in the army, he didn’t tell me he’d signed up for medical experiments to do so, but he made a point of telling me this location where he was staying.” Bucky sighed and shook his head, “Tony it’s probably nothing, my head is on better than it used to be, but I don’t know what this has to do with Steve being gay.” 

“Dad built the Manor shortly after the war, until then it apparently was a piece of land with nothing of significance. Except there was a large bunker set up. I figured it was dad’s cold war paranoia getting the better of him and he just built a huge bomb shelter under the house.” 

Tony twiddled with his coffee mug as he put the pieces together. “I think… Dad… experimented on Steve. I think after Erskine died, Steve felt.. beholden to the program and Dad knew how to manipulate guilt. The army gave up on him, they weren’t going to put him in the field at all. Dad wrote a lot about the short sighted decisions from the top. But he never used Steve’s name, and he never used his code name. It was even more under wraps than some of Dad’s other stuff.” 

Tony scrubbed his face, trying to rid himself of the realization, the understanding of what might have happened below his family home, and knowing that Steve faced a real threat of going back there if his suspicions were correct. 

“So you think your dad sold me off to the Soviets to get rid of the only person who’d miss Steve? Get rid of the corrupting influence?” 

“I don’t know, I don’t think Dad would sell you, but he’d have used your disappearance to his advantage. I doubt he would have outed him.” 

"It was the forties, Tony, if your dad outed Steve and I, we'd have been at best out of job, out of the army, out of a pension, homeless and unable to find work once we were state side. We'd likely have faced court martial and if we didn't end up in prison, we'd have been chemically castrated. That would have worked perfectly if he needed to discredit him. Turing was a few years after the war. It didn't matter if you were a war hero or somehow saved the world from the brink of annihilation, they only remembered the queer part."

"You think my dad threatened all of that." 

"He threatened something, his approval meant a lot to Steve and he did his best to shield Peggy and I from what Howard knew."

"Why would Steve want to be with me then? I must remind him of my dad. I'd want to be anywhere but near the man who looked like the one person who could ruin your whole existence."

"And yet," Bucky said. "He's not only admitted his feelings for you he's managed to create a narrative where the only thing that makes perfect sense is that you two are married."

"You have no idea if those feelings are genuine."

"Yeah I do, Tony. Berlin, the Sokovia Accords, Siberia. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the two of you didn't have feelings for the other. I've been out of Steve's life for more than seventy years, and there's a lot of shit that he and I need to work through. But you're the first person I know that he's loved and not felt like he's had to prove something to." 

"Why the hell would he have anything to prove to me?"

"Steve has spent his entire life proving his worth to everyone around him," Bucky said. "He had to prove that he was worth the effort his mother spent keeping him healthy. The money she spent trying to keep him well. He was constantly bullied and picked every fight he could because if he stopped fighting for a second he thought he was giving up. He tried to get in the army seven times and accepted the notion that medical experiments were worth getting a chance to fight. Erskine died and he spent the rest of the war proving that he wasn't a waste of an experiment.

“He put that plane down in the ice because he knew that if he died saving the world, it might, might mitigate the shitstorm that being outed would cause." Bucky shrugged. "We didn't get a lot of chances to talk before everything went wrong and he disappeared. But I got enough of a sense to know that if he felt the need to prove anything to you, it was that you had nothing to prove to him." 

Tony's coffee cup was empty, and there wasn't enough coffee or liquor in the world that could fill it up enough for dealing with this conversation. He was too open, too raw, and too vulnerable. 

"I can't see him yet, I understand that. Would it be okay if I kept tabs on him. Shuri mentioned you had a few safe houses nearby." 

"You aren't exactly all that stealthy, Bucky." Tony said, "Wouldn't that make things worse? Being able to see him and not talk to him?" 

Bucky shrugged, finished the last of his coffee and set the cup down. "No. Seeing him, knowing that you're looking out for him and helping him get back on his feet, whatever that means for him, that's more than enough." Bucky gave Tony a look that near gutted him. "I'm never going to find peace outside of taking down as many Hydra as I can. Shuri's absolute genius tech has helped me navigate my way back to sanity and back to a capable human being, but I have decades of blood on my hands. Steve deserves a life that isn't measured by how many bullets he's dodged, and how many wars he's fought. He deserves a home. Even in spite of all the misunderstandings and yes, the betrayal that's happened, you've given him that when you didn't have to." 

"What kind of person would let him suffer? He hates hospitals, he can't stand the smell of it, and can suss out a doctor even when we're at a grocery store." Tony scrubbed at his face and nodded. 'I'll set you up in one of the safe houses. Shuri told me to give her another two weeks while she works out a potential solution, it also coincides with one of the contracts that is ending on the second safehouse. Fury has vetted a lot of people for me to use to keep him safe. I'll get you added to one of the itineraries. Are you in contact with any of the others?"

"Once Steve went dark I took over handling the ops. I've got contacts for all of them. You want them brought in on this or keep it dark for now?" 

"Keep it dark, fewer aware of this, the less chance of Ross or any of the left over Hydra cronies getting tabs on Steve." 

***

Tanks rumbled through Steve’s dreams and he felt the world shake as bombs went off all around him. He couldn’t hide from them, Hydra was all around him along with a bone deep cold from the winter frozen mud covering him. 

He woke to the acrid smell of smoke filling his lungs and loud sirens throughout the house. The war he barely remembered snapped in the face of harsh reality. He rolled out of bed, hit the ground to get away from the smoke and crawled around the other side of the bed. Tony lay against the wall under the window breathing through a piece of cloth. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Not sure, can’t see much, they’ve set part of the house on fire and surrounded the property. We need to get to the basement.” 

Terror dropped in his stomach and he shook his head. “Whoever is out there we can take them. I’m not letting them take my home, Tony.” 

“I need my suit and you’re not fighting people naked. Think, Steve.” 

He sighed. “I could fight them naked. I’d still beat them. What do you have in mind?” 

“I have a suit in the basement and I can set the locks so they can’t get in. And if push comes to shove you can use the tunnels underneath to get away.” 

“I’m not going near those tunnels, Tony. Fuck those tunnels.” Steve spat out. He leaned up just enough to see over the window sill and slunk back down. “Hard to tell but there’s at least ten out there.” 

“Yeah and more coming, Friday is keeping them busy with the security system. How’s your head?” 

“Fine, but let’s move before the smoke gets worse.” 

They crawled through the bedroom and peered out the door. The smoke was thicker in the hallway but the fire wasn’t in their wing yet. Steve could see three people coming up the steps in riot gear, he rolled over to the other side of the hall using the hall table as cover. 

He waited a breath, picked up one of the glass doodads on the table and launched himself down the hallway. He was barefoot and silent on the thick carpet as he jumped and landed on the closest one using his weight to dislocate the weapon shoulder. He used both hands in a driving maneuver with the weight between them as a club and drove it against the assailant’s head and rolled away from another’s attack. 

Steve kicked and took out another’s knee, grabbing the knife sticking from of a nearby sheath and slashing across a thigh. He switched his grip and swung up for more vulnerable areas to drop them fast. He rolled away from more blows, dodging what he could and ignoring the sting of what he couldn’t. 

There was a roaring in his ears and he could feel his head slipping and losing where and who he was amidst the fight, reactions taking a hit as he fought to keep hold of who he was. 

Four pops rent the air, sniper bullets followed by the last assailant toppling over. Steve looked up to see Tony and a small drone over his shoulder holding out his hand. 

“Stop fighting NAKED!” Tony hissed and pushed him down their hallway to a dead end. Tony pressed the wall with his hand, something whirred and it swung open to darkness beyond. Tony didn’t give Steve a choice, grabbed his hand and dragged him down the stairs before the cavalry arrived. 

The room was little more than a box with a small overhanging fixture and several cupboards lined the walls. The room lit up as Tony pressed his hands to the work table the surface alive with a topographical map of the surrounding property with a view of how many they were facing. 

The place was surrounded, the guest house untouched for now, but the west wing of the house was in flames, Friday’s fire suppression was keeping it contained for the moment. 

There were four large vans, and a small army of people with heavy assault gear outside. That didn’t make sense. They could have overrun the place in seconds and killed them before they would have been the wiser. They had somehow gotten onto the grounds without alerting any of the security systems but instead of killing them in their sleep they set a fire to wake them up. 

Tony snapped something onto his chest and in seconds he was ready for war. Behind Steve a cupboard popped up with clothes. “Get dressed. Again, fighting naked is wrong.” 

“I work with what I have, Tony.” 

“I’m not letting terrorists see my husband naked, Steve,” Tony quipped. 

Steve grinned and pulled the denim on quickly. He glanced around the room for weapons, looking back at Tony with questions in his eyes.

“No, you’re not going out there with just a shield.” Tony slapped a small disk on his chest. Steve caught the brief sight of a star before it shift and spread around him surrounding him in a suit like Tony’s. 

“What the--” 

“Don’t worry, I kept your colour scheme, and Friday has mapped your moves, so don’t worry.” 

“Lead the way.” The sound of his voice inside the headpiece felt hollow but he had no loss in vision and his range of motion didn’t feel hampered. Steve followed Tony through a tunnel and out into the smoke filled air. 

The grounds were in chaos, fire spreading around the property. Silhouetted against the flames masked people stood guns at the ready. Steve ran across the yard, Tony’s suit increasing his speed with each foot fall. Four enemies separated from the pack and shot at him.

He tried to cover with his arm but it wasn’t enough he was missing something. He leapt over the wheelbarrow, kicking off and using the momentum to cut the distance between them and disarm them. 

Tony flew by behind the group taking care of the fires and disabling vehicles. Steve focused on disabling and disarming as many assailants as he could. The suit moved with him like a second skin,he quickly adjusted to it enough so he no longer felt it. 

He took down each enemy, holding back enough to keep from killing them. They needed answers. Where had they come from? What did they want? How did they get around the security systems? Steve kept fighting, pushing himself to keep going. Pain radiated along his neck and back, spreading from the bullet still lodged in his skull. His reactions were slowing despite the suit, despite his intentions. 

One of the intruders who ran for the vehicles came around the other side with a fifty calibre rifle. They got one shot off before the recoil took them to the ground. Steve couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the way, so threw up his hands to shield himself. 

_ Whomp. _ Sound muffled around him ,  spreading from his hands shimmered blue and red at its centre a large star. A second later the bullet smashed into the shield the impact rippling outward. Steve’s hands shook but the shield didn’t budge as smoke swarmed around him. 

“STEVE!” 

“I’m good, Tony,” he said, breathing ragged. “Did you make this shield?” 

  
“I made the whole thing. Keep focused, Spangles. I am not losing you to these losers.” 

Steve grinned. 

Breaking into a run he dropped the shield and took out another enemy. Three in front of him dropped, one, two, three, too fast for Steve to see the red dot move between them.

A cat landed on top of the vehicle near him, another intruder falling at his feet.

“We thought you could use some help,” the figure said. 

Steve felt his brain try to crawl through the bullet and he grunted. “Thanks.” He didn’t wait around for an introduction, knew he had moments before that would drop him. 

He took off toward another pocket of assailants dropping two as four more collapsed around him, hit from somewhere in the trees. Someone had a gun and was picking them off with calculated practice. 

Tony swooped around tossing the last of them down. Once the immediate danger was over Tony flew over to the house and put out the last of the fires. 

“Well, at least we hadn’t renovated the East Wing yet,” Steve said. “New project?” 

“Not until I figure out who the fuck these guys are and why the hell we’re being targeted,” Tony said, still focused on the damage. “Tie them up before they wake up, Black Panther is on his way to bring in some reinforcements.”

“Whose he bringing in? Are there any more bad guys on the horizon, Tony?” 

Tony hovered in midair and it was several seconds before he answered. “No, we’re safe for the moment. He’s bringing his sister, I know this is sudden but this was too close and I can’t risk your safety anymore, we’re getting that bullet out. Today.” 


	6. Chapter 6

A jet landed in their backyard, too quiet compared to its size. Steve stood on the patio, clutching the mask in his hands. Tony and the man in the cat mask, Black Panther, loaded the jet with the intruders, others milled around the property removing vehicles and signs there’d ever been an attack. 

The tree lined appeared black and charred in the early dawn light. Steve turned the mask over and over in his hands pushing the edges into his flesh to keep him grounded. 

“Steve,” Friday said, from the camera behind him. “You’re still wearing the suit, your vital signs are going haywire.” 

“Holding on by my fingernails, Friday. How long do I have before Tony figures it out.” 

“He’s aware,” Friday said. “He would like to remind you he’s a genius, and he knows you.” 

A tight smile touched Steve’s lips. Tony separated from the group, and the suit dissolving around him back into the casing on his chest. Without a word, Tony took the mask from Steve’s hands, placed it back on his head with a snap. 

“The suit’s designed to snap back into the casing in your chest, Friday, show him.”

One second the suit was solid and encompassed his entire body, the next, it separated along micro fractures and returned into its casing. Steve looked down at the star, his gaze travelling to the light on Tony’s chest. “Oh…” 

“What?” 

“Leave it to my head to be that literal when I felt like I broke your heart.” Steve winced. “Did we find out anything from the ones still alive.” 

“No one is talking yet, but they’re wearing armor similar to the ones who did the bombing in London,” Tony squeezed Steve’s hand. “But not important, I will figure that out later. For now we have visitors, and visitors with good news.” 

“What’s that? I’m grateful they arrived to help when they did.” Steve looked around Tony’s shoulder to the jet as people stepped off carrying equipment. False dawn settled around them, the outside motion lights were off and grey light and smoke covered everything in a haze.

"If you don't want to do this, I'll send them away," Tony said next to him.

"Kind of late now, Tony," Steve grunted.

“Still, we can go back to sleep and I will figure out what happened and we’ll look at this another day.” 

"No, what if they had taken you? I wouldn’t have been able to cross the property line. You would have been out there without me, and I can’t have that,” Steve said, “I want to be able to remember us, Tony. Without this pain clouding everyone else. Even the few memories I have are getting fucked up. We need to do something about this thing before I forget you again." 

"Never gonna happen. Won't let you."

Two figures separated from the others with the equipment. The man in the cat mask had taken the mask off, and a young woman with an incredibly bright smile smile. 

“Steve, I would like to introduce you to T'Challa, Son of T'Chaka, King of Wakanda, and his sister, Princess Shuri." 

"It's a pleasure to meet you. Although, judging by the impending headache, I'd say we've met before." Steve said. "Gotta say, I'll be happier when I can tell my memories not by how bad the migraine is going to be." 

"I'm going to oversee how they're setting up in the guest house, you come when you're ready, Steve. Not before," Shuri said, before heading off. 

Steve took that moment to sit, his wobbly legs no longer cooperating. He could rationalise about the whole thing all he wanted, but that didn't calm the terror that ran unchecked in the back of his brain. Doctors, medicine of any kind broke him out into a cold sweat and he could almost feel the gears moving trying to put T'Challa into some kind of context that didn’t cause him pain. 

Tony was next to him, holding his hand and rubbing circles with his thumb, grounding Steve to the here and now. T'Challa, a king, knelt in front of him, concern evident in his expression, and familiar face. 

"I think I remember your father," Steve said, eventually. He couldn't stop the rolling memories, not even the pain that crested along the back of his head, minor shocks that bounced and built upon one another until it encompassed his whole head. "I met him during a war, exchanged shields, he was a good man." Images burst before him with no context, too fast to parse. He squeezed Tony's hand but not even that contact was enough to ground him against the deluge. He fucked up, there wasn't shit he could do to stop it, only hope it would stop on its own before he passed out. 

He felt the ground shift and he opened his eyes enough to see Tony walking beside him. "Suh... sorry Tony, didn't mean ta-- din't mean to worry ya." 

"Too late for that, cupcake," Tony said. 

Steve had to close his eyes again, the lights were getting brighter and he needed them to stop being so loud. He felt cold metal against his arms, jerked away and a whimper lodged in his throat. Tony's callused hand took his and squeezed hard, grounding him as much he could against the pain and whatever else was going on his brain. He'd never been awake this long during an attack, he'd pass out before he'd get this deep into the kaleidoscope of terror. Images overlapped and jumbled around each other, none of them felt real. 

With eyes closed he felt dragged away from the barn, away from Tony by a sea of memories he didn't even know if they were his anymore. A prick in his wrist and his hand burned as they pressed something into his veins. He lost track of the feeling somewhere along his elbow as his muscles gave out and he slumped against the chair. The pressure of being held down let up but no longer able to fight against the tide of images. 

Terrifying images of a demented man with a red mask on his fact, fighting again, and again. A woman he didn't recognize drifted above the rest and made his heart ache so much he thought it was going to crack inside him. Another image of Arnie surfaced, his first kiss at seventeen faded to another back alley brawl and Bucky picking him up off the ground and helping him keep his feet until they got home. War, injections, so many injections. Bombs. 

Tony. 

Tony. 

Tony.

Tony was real, and here and holding his hand and he wasn't letting go. He knew they were married, no matter what Tony said about his memories. That was real, the rest didn't matter. He wanted that one. He wanted the laughter in the middle of the night, he wanted their easy friendship. He needed it as much as he needed to breathe. 

Pain ripped through the base of his skull and he screamed. Tony kissed his hand. He would know those lips no matter how far gone he was in pain. He'd been in pain before, it never lasted. He'd felt worse. It would be over soon and Tony was there, holding his hand. Between one moment and the next the pain ceased. 

His head felt empty. Echoing and hollow. A long low groan escaped from him. Another rush of pressure in his hand and before he could ask, darkness took him. 

***

"There, he's been cut off from the other universes. Time to get the bullet out." 

Tony sat next to Steve, holding his limp hand as Shuri and the others worked around Steve's head. "What... what do you mean, other universes?" Tony asked, his voice dull. He could still hear Steve scream his name over, and over again. Tony could feel the nightmares adding that to their catalogue of shit to drag out when he was forced to close his eyes. 

Shuri didn't speak for a few moments as she lined up the screen above Steve's head. She placed four small dots around Steve's neck and Tony looked up and watched as the screen filled with the internal rendering of Steve's neck and brain. It mapped and catalogued the nerves and blood vessels, muscle and bone that networked through and made removing the bullet all but impossible. Blue lines crisscrossed Steve's neck, shifted and then sectioned off a part of his neck, indicating the line of incision. With tools made from the best machine shop Tony knew to exist -- that being Shuri's own -- he watched as she cut into Steve's neck and excised the bullet from the around the nerve endings. The tag itself came free easily and the small filaments disintegrated as the bullet slipped free. 

Shuri dropped the bullet into the kidney shaped metal bowl and brought out another small machine that resealed Steve's wound without stitches. The thin red line on his neck faded as Steve's healing ability took over and mended him from there. Satisfied with her work Shuri finally looked at Tony and held out the bullet. 

"That little sucker right there is using alien tech and vibranium. I don't know how Ross got them--unless he's been dealing with an arms dealer, we used to know. They're dangerous and can cause massive problems, the electrical charge from the alien tech and the vibranium forced an opening, an access point to all of the universes where Steve exists." 

"Jesus," Tony whispered softly. "So every time he tried to remember something from here… he was remembering it all? Everything?" 

"Everything, every possible way the two of you existed, or didn't exist. Every way he met my brother, every way he became Captain America. The more constant something was the easier it was to mesh with his current worldview, even if he wasn't consciously aware of that worldview." 

"That seriously doesn't explain why he hasn't spent the last year trying to claw my eyes out for keeping him locked up here or even just still breathing." 

Shuri placed a gentle hand on Tony's shoulder. "For a genius you really are an idiot, Mr. Stark. What it means is that regardless of universe, the two of you have been important to each other. Enough of them held deeper feelings for each other that coincided with his feelings for you here." 

"Multiphasic universe altering tech make Steve fall in love with me?"

"No, Tony." Shuri said quietly. The look on her face spoke of such kindness and earnest intent it made Tony's chest tight. "Steve has loved you in so many universes that you are his one constant. Your love and your relationships throughout the multiverse are so central in Steve's life, and you are so firmly you, regardless of universe, that he could see you without the memories creating halos and shifts. Remember what happened when he looked at my brother? He saw a meeting with our father instead of Berlin. He saw other histories, other lives. 

"No matter how much he looked at you, you remained the same." 

"Is that actually a good thing?" He didn't believe it. He wanted to, so damn much, but there was absolutely no way that was possible. 

"It is, Tony. Now, it's time to move him to the bedroom if we can. I don't think he should wake up with all these machines around him."

***

He woke up in a bed he recognized. The familiar scents of fresh laundry and Tony's cologne melded to encapsulate him in a cocoon of familiarity. Steve didn't want to leave it. Didn't want consciousness and duty and responsibility to dictate to the rest of his morning. He wanted to stay curled up in bed with Tony sleeping next to him. He rolled over to get closer to Tony only to feel the tug of something in his arm. 

"It's okay, it's just the IV, Steve, they needed to keep you on fluids for a few more hours." Tony whispered as he rolled over and curled against Steve's side. "I'll get the nurse in a minute to see if it can come out, all right?" 

Steve looked down at Tony's tousled hair from sleep driven cuddling and wrapped an arm around him. Fear faded in the background, the spike of adrenaline chasing away the last bits of his exhaustion. 

"Had a rough night?" He asked softly. 

"Yes, I did actually," Tony murmured. Steve couldn't see his face but knew the sound of Tony the Sarcastic Martyr anywhere. 

"Did I have a bad one last night?"

Tony shot up, awake and his expression was no longer kidding, worry creased at the corners of his eyes and he stared at Steve looking for something. "I'm getting Shuri, I'll be right back." He was off the bed like a shot before Steve could stop him. 

Steve sighed and looked at the IV pole beside him. It wasn't plugged in and the bathroom was close. he could probably make it before Tony brought the cavalry. Steve rolled to a sitting position and used the IV pole to stabilize as he stood. Not bad, not really dizzy, just a bit unsteady, probably a shitty migraine and maybe a seizure. Those usually fucked him up for a day and half afterward. The fluids from the IV weren't helping his bladder any and he managed to get into the bathroom and shut the door before Tony crossed the threshold back into the bedroom. 

"Steve, honey, what are you doing?"

"I think it's pretty obvious, Tony. I'll be out in a second."

"It's really important you come out of there."

"I can't hear you!" He said over the sound of flushing toilet. He washed his hands, careful to avoid cannula jutting out of hand. Once done, he opened the door to four people staring at him. Tony was two steps from jumping on him, and there was at least one nurse if not two and someone he assumed was the doctor considering the clipboard in her hand. 

"Tony, you really didn't have to call in the cavalry. I'm fine." 

"Steve, Tony mentioned you thought you had another seizure," Shuri said. 

“He doesn't remember the procedure, Shuri, he--" 

"Tony, --" 

Things slotted into place. 

That's why Tony looked ready to jump out of his skin. 

He was three steps from fix it mode, and which given half a chance for Tony would include some kind of armor he was sure. His -- boyfriend? Partner? -- Tony, had their home so wrapped up in security, Steve wouldn't have been surprised if the whole house turned into a panic room at the first sign of danger. Yesterday Steve was absolutely positive they'd been married, and now, the certainty was gone in a haze of clouded memories and half forgotten images. His feelings hadn't changed, he just didn't know what he could call it anymore. 

Fuck it. Tony was still his husband. They'd figure out the legalities of that later, for now it made it so much simpler. Steve stepped over the bathroom threshold and took Tony's hand. "I haven't gone anywhere, Tony, I promise. So, the procedure you mentioned, the one happening next week, it happened already huh?" 

Tony let out a breath and spun on his heel. "Oh boy, okay that's not as bad as I thought. You scared the shit out of me, Steve." 

"I'm sorry, Tony. It wasn't my intention. I was groggy and I thought I'd gone snooping into the files or something. That's usually why I wake up with an IV in my hand. Speaking of which, can we take this out?" 

"If you're okay with it, I'd like to examine you first and then we'll take the IV out." 

Steve nodded, and took a seat on the edge of the bed. The young doctor, and Shuri, checked his vitals and all of the necessary things that make doctors mmm and ahh over before announcing he was fine physically. 

"Now for your memory," she said and flashed him a smile. "You said you don't remember the last week?" 

"Sort of? The days bleed together a lot here when Tony's not around." 

"Let's start at the beginning then. What is the first thing you remember." 

"Waking up in this bed." He tilted his head as if trying to dislodge something. "Has it been a year, Tony? I'm fuzzy on dates, but I know sometime in September of 2016." 

"That's good, do you remember anything before that?" 

Steve closed his eyes as if that would somehow help him sift through memories that weren't there. It made it easier not to have to look at Tony's face, he had no idea how Tony managed to handle all the business meetings and things he had when he clearly had no poker face to speak of. Nothing came, blackness and an echo returned, but it didn't hurt. There wasn't that building pressure against the back of his head either. He reached up and touched the back of his neck, gingerly, in case he somehow managed to set the whole thing off just by touching it. 

"I don't remember anything, but it doesn't hurt. There's just... nothing really there anymore. Before it felt like there was something there I could access if I could push through the pain of it. Now it's just.. blank." 

Shuri touched his shoulder. "That's not a bad thing, Steve. You couldn't continue on the way you have been any longer. Now you can recover, heal properly. Physically, you’ve healed already, your healing factor took care of that. Now we just have to let it work on repairing the damage the tracker bullet had caused." 

That sounded better than what he felt. Aside from holding his hand when Steve asked for it, Tony was very private with affection, physically. Tony would spend money as if he was turning on a faucet to show someone how much he cared for them, but physical touches, soft moments were rare. Not because they were less important to Tony, but they didn't end up spread across the tabloids as readily and big gestures distracted people from digging into things deeper.

Tony sat next to him on the bed, took Steve's now IV free hand and kissed his palm. Steve gladly gave in and leaned his head on Tony's shoulder, closing his eyes and letting Tony hold him up for a few minutes before he had to shoulder it again. 

"Thanks, doc, he said. "I know you've done what you can, I was just hoping I'd wake up with all my memories."

"True, Steve, but now you can start incorporating those old memories from other sources without the multiverse trying to crawl its way inside your head."

"Multiverse?" 

Tony patted his hand. "I promise to fill you in on all of those details. In the meantime, Shuri has graciously lent us her time and super brain and likely has a lot of work to do at home. She did, however, promise that she and her brother would visit once we've made sure that this visit didn't crop up on any international ears."

Boots stomped in double time down the hall and a man carrying a huge sniper rifle in a metal arm came into the room. “We’ve got trouble, got one of them to talk, they’re a Latverian mercenary contingent. Ross paid for them and radar says he’s on his way. We’ve got to move now.” 

Tony jumped into action. “Use the tunnels, I’ve recoded them to allow Steve egress. Take them, get him out of here. I will handle Ross.” 

“No, Tony, I’m not leaving without you, and what did I say about those tunnels?” 

“I know, but this is bigger than that. You’ll be safe with Bucky, and if I need to I can explain away my involvement with terrorists but not you, he’ll kill you if he gets half the chance.” 

“What about you?” 

“I’ve made myself too much of a public darling for him to give me more than a slap on the wrist. I will be fine.” 

Steve hesitated, looked between Tony and figure with the gun. He remembered the name Bucky from all of his files, but the fuzziness from the procedure was still fresh and he couldn’t grasp much of anything. 

Somewhere in his heart, this felt familiar. 

He grabbed Tony’s hand and pulled him close, kissing him. “Fine, we’ll do this your way. But I swear if you don’t come get me... “ 

Tony grinned. “I need to get that in writing. Steve listening to my advice without arguing.” 

“I’m cloudy from surgery, and don’t have another option at hand.” 

“I’ll take it.” 

Bucky, grunted. “Best you’re going to get, better get moving, they’re five minutes out.” 

“We’ll scramble one of the jets to get you out safely, have Friday relay your location when you’re safe,” Shuri added. 

Steve gave Tony one last look. “I-” 

“Go, already! Fuck, the one time I need you to leave before the shit hits the fan and you dither.” 

Steve gave him a parting kiss, leaving before he changed his mind. The secret entrance down the hall opened for him and they took the stairs down. Bucky didn’t say much as they navigated the darkened stairway. Steve didn’t know how to break the silence and soon it hung between them, broken only by the sounds of their footsteps against the concrete. 

They entered the workroom from the night before and Steve grabbed footwear before plunging deeper into the maze of tunnels. 

“In five hundred metres make a left turn. Another 300 metres will bring you to a T junction. It opens onto the nearest neighbour,” Friday said, cutting the silence. 

“That’s too close, how much farther is the next two properties?”

“Property three is 1500 metres beyond that, and property four is closer to five miles away. Both are connected to the tunnels and you do not need to leave them and risk exposure.” 

Steve felt sweat prickle on his brow but he nodded nonetheless. Fuck this. He’d get out of this place. 

Bucky didn’t speak for a moment, then said when Steve didn’t offer an opinion. “The fourth property is likely the safest and we can take off in the jet before Ross can realize you’re gone.” 

“I hate leaving Tony holding the bag,” Steve admitted. 

“He’s not, he’s handling what he needs to do to keep you both safe. Keeping you on the property is as much a risk to him as to you.” 

Decision made, he headed down the corridor. “I don’t even remember who this Ross asshole is and I can tell I already hate him.” 

***

Tony came down the main staircase, adjusting his vest in an effort to control his breathing. Friday told him the moment Steve and Bucky entered the tunnels and he hoped the team in the house had scrubbed all physical evidence from the place. It worked in his favour that half the Manor was once again in shambles and a hollowed out wreck, gave him an excuse to have all the people around.

A parade of vehicles entered the property filling the large front gravel. Ross stepped out of one of the cars and stormed into the house past Tony. 

“I want this place searched top to bottom, I want every stone, every pillow, ever fucking bookcase turned over until we find him.” 

“Where’s your warrant, General? Did you have a judge sign off on this? Last I checked you’re not allowed to work on US soil and you’re definitely not part of the Attorneys General.” 

Ross smiled.

Tony hated that smile and something in him want to hide from it. Fuck he hated Ross. 

“I don’t need a warrant, Tony. You signed accords and they override sovereign law in the administration of the duties of those under the Accords. You’re classed a Super, you don’t have any rights. Frankly, you’re no longer even classified as human.” 

Tony managed to hold a neutral face. “Funny I only see one monster here,” Tony quipped. He wanted to punch the smug look from Ross’ face and he wasn’t sure what kept him restrained, only the assurance that as long as Ross kept looking here they weren’t going to find Steve. Tony had his prints and codes stripped from his father’s system, only Steve could get in and out now after that charges were set to detonate and collapse the whole works, bury the evidence of his father’s sins where they belonged, buried under dirt and left to rot. 

He walked away from Ross and went outside for some air. “Friday get Pepper on the line and send her the Accords ASAP. I’m probably going to need as many lawyers as we have on retainer in less than ten.” 

“Already on it, Boss.” 

“Knew I could count on you.” 

Twenty minutes passed while he sat outside; he’d received four messages from Pepper and his lawyers and signatures went flying, if things were going to go sideways he’d have his own protected. 

Ross stormed out of the house, four of his men on his heels. “Where did they say the helicopter spotted them?” 

“Three miles north, sir. They’re travelling through the woods. There are two of them and they match the description of the fugitives.” 

Fuck. 

Ross practically bounced into the SUV and had the gall to salute at Tony. “I’ve taken the liberty of freezing your assets, Stark. You’re too much of a liability and now I have proof that you’ve housed fugitives on your property.” 

“Fuck you, you sanctimonious prick,” Tony called back. 

“I’m leaving several of my men here to keep you under watch. They have orders to shoot to kill, Tony. Don’t make them.” 

Doors slammed, several of Ross’ men stood at attention around the property. Ross and the rest of the SUVs left heading toward Steve. Tony spun on his heel and went into the house, ignoring as three of his jailers followed him. He went into his father’s office, locked the door and set the shields. 

“Give me eyes on what’s happening, Friday.”

“It doesn’t look good, Tony. Ross is too close and if T’Challa interferes before they enter the jet he’ll be interfering on foreign soil.” 

Tony say heavily in his father’s chair and sunk into the leather, watching the satellite showing his life crumble around him. “I fucked up, Friday. I fucked up and he’s going to pay the price.” 

***

Steve rushed out of the nearest door and collapsed to the ground, vomiting as terror raced across his shoulders and sent spasms down his arms and legs. He still felt like the tunnels surrounded him, could smell the antiseptic, the tang of his own blood as they draw yet another vial for their experiments. 

He gagged, his stomach empty, heaving nothing but panic and memories into the leaf strewn ground. 

Bucky stood behind him strangely hesitant.

“So-” He coughed, spit, then tried again. “Sorry, I-I thought I could handle them.”

“What the everloving fuck did Howard do to you in that place, and how did you still work with him after it?” 

Steve sat back on his heels and looked down at his hands. “I thought I owed them at first. I was the only success and they needed to reengineer the serum from my blood. Then it turned into finding out what I could do, and how far my pain tolerance went, how fast I healed, that kind of thing. I was only here for about four months before I called the Senator to accept his offer. I was transferred to the USO show in less than 24 hours. 

“By the time I ran into Howard again we were flying over enemy lines to drop me in, and Peggy trusted him.” 

“Son of a bitch.” Bucky paced back and forth his artificial hand clenching with the need to hurt something. With effort, Bucky turned and helped Steve to his feet. “We’re getting the fuck out of here and then we’re getting your boyfriend back.” 

“Husband actually,” Steve said following Bucky through the woods. 

“So you still think that’s true, the magic that weapon did still working on you?” 

“No, things are hazy as hell but I remember a few things. Including Tony and I having a virtual ceremony.” 

“How did he agree to that when your head has been anything but in the right place?” 

“I’m persuasive,” Steve said. 

“You proposed.” 

“I did.” 

“How many times?”

“He said yes all nine times, he just needed convincing that I wasn’t going to change my mind if I got my memories back.” 

“Yeah, we did kind of fuck him up in Siberia.” 

“I fucked him up in Siberia, I went for the one thing I knew would disarm him, but in the course of doing that I also destroyed all of the trust he had in me.” 

Bucky shook his head. “The two of you are made for each other. No more talking, we need to pick up the pace if we’re crossing through here. I’ve got a location on the jet and we need to book it if we’re gonna get there before Ross finds out you’re not at the Manor. Can you run?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine now that I'm out in the open.” 

Bucky picked up speed into a run and Steve followed behind him, running around trees and avoiding roots and other debris that lined the ground hidden under the crunch of dead leaves. 

It took them longer to run than either liked, the unfamiliar terrain making travel difficult but as they rounded a bend they saw the house off in the distance and the jet waiting with the doors opens for them. Bucky was further ahead of him, last night’s fight and the subsequent surgery taking their toil and even his endurance flagging. 

Bucky jumped aboard the jet and turned to grab for Steve when Ross’ men came out in force and surrounded him. Steve stopped as twenty guns aimed at his head and chest.

"Run and I will shoot you Rogers. I will shoot you and destroy Tony for harbouring a fugitive." Ross said as he walked toward him. 

Steve turned around and watch as a red bead shone on Ross's chest and slid up to his head.

"Go ahead, take me out. If you take the shot Barnes, I have all the proof I need and you send this country into world war three." 

Steve stares, the dot doesn’t flinch from it’s spot between Ross’s eyes. 

"Don't believe me? I am the only thing that stands between this president and outright war. You thought Hydra was bad? Tell me Rogers, how'd it feel to realize you picked the wrong bad guy the first time around? Sure the Red Skull was out for blood, but while you were taking pot shots at a comically over the top villain, the real bad guys ethnically cleansed more than six million people off of this planet. How'd it feel to read the history books and realise you fucked up and missed the bigger picture.”

Steve felt his jaw twitch. He couldn’t answer Ross. Wouldn’t give the smug son of a bitch a response. His head fucking hurt and he just needed to get to the jet, but his way was barred by too many people and in that Ross was right, he couldn’t fight them, not because he cared what happened, but he just didn’t have it in him, he was running on fumes and he didn’t have much left.

“Why do you get to decide where and how your powers get to be used. You could have saved millions,” Ross said as he raised his hands, the gun held loosely in a placating gesture. The men around Steve stood down, let their weapons drop just enough to so they aimed at the ground. A minute gesture was all it would take to face off against twenty plus guns, but it had the desired effect, the red dot faltered with Bucky’s hesitation. 

"If you think the Red Skull was bad, you haven't seen what evil lurks in our White House, what it has taken me to keep him in line and away from the trigger. Keep it up, all of you and he'll have mutants and supers in concentration camps before the ink is dry,” Ross said. “Sergeant Barnes if you pull the trigger you will drag Wakanda into an open conflict with the United States. You are technically no longer on US soil and I cannot touch you if you stand down now.” 

“As if, fuckface.” 

“Buck,” Steve said, his shoulders sagging. “Stand down, Bucky, it’s over.” 

*** 

**Three months later**

Tony walked down the steps of the Manhattan courthouse, Pepper by his side. Spring had come to New York but Tony wasn’t looking at the flowers or paying attention to the soft breeze. He was twenty steps ahead thinking of his next moves to outwit Ross and the Dictator in Chief. 

“That could have gone better,” Pepper said as they headed down the street. 

“I’m at least off house arrest,” Tony said, “I will figure this out, Pepper. I’m not giving up.” 

“Tony,” Pepper stopped ignoring the crowd as it pushed around them. “We have the combined might of the US court system, half of the UN and at least six other nations all gunning for you and others. How do you propose to fix this?” 

“Only six nations out of the 100 plus signatories on the original documents, the longer this drags out in the courts the more people are getting angry. Supers and mutants across the world have boycotted all work involving the accords and the world is finally realizing exactly how fucked it is without us.” 

Pepper looked frazzled, she kept chewing her lip and Tony saw that her nails were clipped short which meant she’d been chewing them again. He took her hands, they trembled in his before he felt her iron control slam in place. 

“We’re going to beat this, Pepper. I’m getting him back and I’m going to dismantle that fucking prison piece by piece until they never find any of it again.” 

She managed a quick smile before heading back off through the crowd. They made their way into Central Park, away from the more obnoxious crowds and to a spot of greenery to wait for Happy to come and pick them up. 

“Has anyone been able to get any word in or out?” Pepper asked out of the blue. 

  
Tony shook his head. “No, we’ve tried all the proper channels and even some less than savoury channels to try and get information but they keep everything under tight controls. Steve highlighted a lot of their weaknesses the last time he broke out of there, and from the bit of news that has come from the place he hasn’t been making friends,” Tony said quietly. “But the information I have is two months old. I have no idea how he’s doing now, or even if he’s even still alive.” 

“He’s still alive Tony,” Pepper said. “He’s too stubborn.” 

“Three months in a maximum security prison that’s smaller than most hospital rooms. He went there still recovering and the footage from the security cameras in the tunnels before he and Bucky left them was some of the hardest footage I’ve ever had to watch.” 

Before Pepper could open her mouth when the air shimmered, sparked and snapped apart. Tony pushed Pepper behind him hands up when he recognized the one in front of him. 

“You!” 

“Hi, Mr. Stark, no time for pleasantries, come with me.” 

“Fuck you, asshole, you fucking disappeared and left me high and dry. Why the fuck should I go anywhere with you?”

“Hi, Tony?” Grey curly hair popped from behind Strange’s shoulder and Tony pushed the doctor aside. “Bruce? What the hell?” 

“Tony, Tony, it’s bad. Things are really fucking bad. Where’s everyone, we need to round up the Avengers.” 

Tony winced. “That’s gonna be easier said than done. Things have changed a lot since you went dark. What happened, you look good, you been exercising?” 

“Tony, focus,” Bruce snapped. “Where’s Steve, can you get ahold of him, we need to get everyone together, Th-Thor.” Bruce seemed to collapse on himself for a second but rallied. “Thor’s dead, Loki’s dead. All of them are gone. He killed them all. The big guy couldn’t even bruise him. He just tossed Hulk out as if he weighed nothing.” 

“Who, Bruce?” Tony felt his skin go cold, this was it. His nightmares were coming true in 4K. He was going to watch as the world ended at the point of spear lobbed from space. 

“Thanos, Tony,” Bruce whispered. “It’s Thanos and he’s coming here.” 

***

“One fifty, One fifty one. One fifty two. One fifty three,” Steve said with each pull up. His cage was in the centre. Centre stage the guards called, it. High density plastic that could withstand constant barrage of gunfire and deflect most weapons surrounded him on all sides. There were three small ports on each wall that allowed for air exchanged.

He had a small 2x2 area that was covered in a curtain for private business, but the rest of the cage was open for all to see. He was the main attraction for the rest of the inmates. Instead of solitary confinement, Steve was kept under 24 hour surveillance by not only the guards but the other inmates. 

Those with powers beyond increased strength wore collars that dampened their abilities. Steve usually had on one during his allowed fifteen minute showers. At least he used to until a month ago when he’d been jumped by six of the inmates and they tried to kick his ass. While he didn’t have all of his usual strength, what he did have was his wits and he would never back the fuck down. 

He just had to make it another bit. Tony was working to get him out and he’d do it. He was just doing it the right way, so they could be together and Ross would never be able to touch any of them again. 

Steve continued counting, ignoring the jeers and catcalls on the other side of the cage. He was used to staring into the middle distance and ignoring what was around him and focus on the next pull up.

Little did the guards know but the collar was useless on him. The serum had done its work and the rest was all him. So he flipped his bed and used what was available in the room to add weight and turned his own body into a resistance band, building muscle and pushing himself. 

The first week he’d been locked away had been the worst. Unable to tell the difference between day and night, trapped with no way to even try to escape he spent most of his days vomiting and his nights screaming with night terrors. 

The bullet had opened him up to too many things. Too many worlds. He knew and remembered so much even now. He had hoped with time he’d put those things behind him. Left with nothing but his mind and too much time he’d come to learn that another thing the serum had given him was an eidetic memory. 

One some level he’d always been aware of that, but the loss of it during those months when he’d been injured had given him a taste of what forgetting was like. Now with all his memories available and the ones he’d been forced to receive as a result of the alien tech all combined to create a nightmare induced cavalcade of near ceaseless agony when he tried to sleep. 

It took him three weeks before he’d figured out how to pick what his dreams would be about and how much he could control. Exercising until he was a sweating, exhausted husk was the first step and he set about pushing his endurance beyond even what Howard had tortured him with for those four months. 

He could put up with this and whatever else Ross threw at him. Ross was an amateur compared to Howard. And Steve had something that Ross could never take away. Tony was Steve’s, body and soul and he would never again doubt Tony’s commitment or love for him as long there was still air in his lungs. 

Klaxons rang out with shrill instance and the warning lights came on in right before a seizure inducing strobe. An effect to keep everyone down, they must be running another drill. Steve shut his eyes and continued to count his pull ups. 

“Two hundred, two oh one, two oh two, two oh three,” He said with careful deliberation. 

Jack booted guards stomped into the main room outfitted for war with more guns than they could safely use. Intimidation was their game, they knew they were outclassed if even a quarter of the detainees decided to fight back. Steve felt the metallic taste on the back of his tongue, the lies that rattled around his head, the ones Ross used to get him to stand down and accept this as if there was ever going to be a solution that he and Ross would ever agree on. 

How Ross believed he was doing good was beyond him. How he could manipulate Steve with letting Trump off his leash being the worst option. Ross wasn’t protecting anyone. If anything he was happily throwing mutants and supers at Trump’s feet as easy targets. 

The alarms continued their shrill screams, several guards got their kicks by beating the shit out of the detainees and something clicked above his head. 

Fire suppression systems went off and the RAFT powered down. The alarms shut off, the locks on Steve’s cage disengaged. 

And one by one the collars on the inmates shut off. Steve hopped down to the floor and unhooked the weights tied to his legs as a slim figure slipped down through a hole in the ceiling. 

A riot exploded around him, guards now on the receiving end of half the abuse they doled out since the RAFT had been created. Steve could only stare at the red head in front him and he felt his throat go thick. 

“Natasha,” He croaked, his voice catching with unexpected emotion. She threw open his door and he had an armful of assassin wrapped around him. She didn’t shake she just held him and he focused on her heartbeat for several second. 

“Did they kill Tony, Nat?” 

“What?” She jumped back and stared down into his face. “No, you ass, I haven’t seen you in almost a year. I needed to know you were fucking real.” She slipped down. “You had two options, being punched or a hug. I chose the less violent option.” 

Steve managed a weak smile. “I wanted Tony to take the proper channels. I didn’t want him to do anything drastic.”

“Well aren’t you a party pooper. You don’t get a choice, Mister. We bounce now.” She left his cage and he quickly followed her through the throng. At that point he noticed there were others with her, Wanda had a barrier around the two of them so that any attack glanced off. Bucky took out several guards and wounding those who tried to take things too close to murder. 

They slipped through the facility quietly heading for the main exit. 

“Care to tell me what’s going on?”

“It’s not good, Steve. Bruce is back, but he brought bad news with him,” she said. “Thanos is coming. He’s not sure how far out he is but we had to take out two of his agents already. Tony, and Dr Strange went up against one in New York.” 

Steve pushed forward. “Nat, don’t fuck with me here,” he said.

“Language, Steve,” Nat said, handing him a burner phone. 

He recognized it immediately and hit call on the only number, hoping against hope Friday had worked her magic. 

“Hey honey, how’s the breakout going?” 

Steve let out a sob and clawed it back as fast as he could. He would not break here. No one would ever see that. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. 

“Almost out, I’m assuming we're heading to a jet and then onto you?” 

“Not quite,” Tony said his voice full of regret. “I’m careening out of orbit. I’m sorry Steve, but I’ve got to try and stop him. I’ve been having nightmares about this purple fucker since the Chitauri first arrived. I’ve left Nat with your suit, get to Rhodey, Bruce should be there by the time you arrive. It’s-- got--- lov--- “ 

The signal cut off completely and Steve stared at the phone as it crackled static. Hanging up he squeezed it as if he could send the emotions flooding him into space with Tony. 

“You okay there?” Nat asked as they reached the hanger and ducked into the jet. A wave of deja vu hit him as he sat across from her.

“Don't know yet,” he admitted. 

Bucky and Wanda joined them and Steve felt the world shift slightly though they hadn't moved. Eyes closed he concentrated on the shift, something he'd gotten used to in recent months as he tried to process everything that had happened.

Or hadn't depending on his universal perspective. 

“Everyone buckled in?” Clint asked from the cockpit. “Hey Cap, better get suited up, we’ll be at the compound before you know it.” 

“No, Clint,” Steve said suddenly and sat down in the co pilot seat punching in new coordinates. 

“Send out a call, relay it everyone you can. Get Magneto and Genosha on board.” 

“What's going on in that head of yours, Stevie,” Buck asked. “What kind of war are we fighting?” 

“We're fighting an army that's going to end everything and if Tony and the others don't stop him we're it. We're not going to wait for him here we'll take the fight to him. You get anything of use out of the Latverian mercs, Buck?”

Bucky smiled. “I have some leverage with Doom now, think he’ll help?”

“He doesn’t have a choice, I want access to his moonbase.”    
  
"What are you talking about Steve, we don't even know--"    
  
"Yeah we do,” Steve cut Natasha off. “I do.” He pressed the star shaped casing on his chest and shivered as the nanoparticles wrapped around his body and head. “Friday, it’s time to unleash Operation Grimace, we're heading for a storm and I plan on being ahead of this asshole, this time around.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for "Drifting Sands"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17127563) by [Hayluhalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hayluhalo/pseuds/Hayluhalo)




End file.
